Bangladeshi Immigrant Arrested in FBI Terror Sting

The 21-year-old allegedly aimed to 'destroy America' and participated in a fake FBI plot to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

A 21-year-old Bangladeshi man, who came to the US on a student visa, was detained Wednesday after allegedly attempting to detonate a device near the  Federal Reserve Bank of New York that federal authorities and the NYPD undercover agents led to believe was a real bomb.

Quazi Mohammad Nafis, 21. Law Enforcement Photo.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was arrested after being caught up in an elaborate sting in which undercover agents led him to believe they were terrorist cells planning attacks inside the US.

Prosecutors say Nafis was apparently motivated by al Qaeda and traveled to the US in January with the aim of carrying out “a terrorist attack on U.S. soil” recruiting others to form a terrorist cell.

The details of the plot remain largely unknown, but Nafis allegedly contacted an FBI source to whom he proposed multiple targets. The undercover agent, authorities claim, provided 20 bags of 50 pounds each of purported explosives to Nafis, who then stored the material in a warehouse in preparation for the strike.

Nafis appears to be a lone actor whose only known contacts and efforts to carry out any sort of attack involved the FBI undercover agents. These types of cases crop of once in a while and often times garner accusations of entrapment, as people wonder whether these people ever would have been successful without undercover FBI help and whether these people really constitute threats.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.