A former U.S. Navy sailor has pleaded guilty to a 2022 terrorist plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in Chicago’s northern suburbs, allegedly on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to avenge the death of an Iranian general assassinated in a U.S. airstrike in 2020.
Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, pleaded guilty to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities, with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the United States.
Pang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, moved to the U.S. in 1998, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 2022, and was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes for his training.
He was charged in the alleged terrorist plot under seal in 2022, and pleaded guilty in November in federal court in Chicago. The charges and plea agreement were unsealed on Thursday.
According to the charges, Pang discussed smuggling radioactive polonium into the U.S. to further the plot, took surveillance photos and videos of the outside and inside of Naval Station Great Lakes, and agreed to provide two military uniforms and a cell phone that could be used as a detonator for an explosive device.
Pang is being held without bond, and faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 27.
According to court records, the FBI began investigating Pang in the summer of 2021, when he communicated with an individual in Colombia about potentially carrying out an attack on the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, Iran’s most elite military unit.
Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. air strike in Iraq in 2020.
An undercover FBI employee, posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force, later contacted the individual in Colombia about conducting an attack, and the individual put the FBI employee in touch with Pang, who at the time was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes.
Pang later discussed possible targets for the attack with the FBI employee, and shared photos and videos of potential attack sites, including Naval Station Great Lakes. Pang also shared photos of the naval station with the individual from Colombia, who in turn shared them with the undercover FBI employee.
In addition, Pang allegedly discussed an attack on the Cloud Gate sculpture at Millennium Park, commonly known as “The Bean,” as well as the Michigan Avenue bridge in downtown Chicago.
In the fall of 2022, Pang met with another person secretly cooperating with the FBI, including one meeting outside the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, and two meetings at a train station in north suburban Lake Bluff.
At an Oct. 8, 2022, meeting in Lake Bluff, Pang discussed targeting the Michigan Avenue bridge, telling the cooperator “you guys are looking for max damage, right?”
After the cooperator confirmed that was the case, he gave $3,000 cash to cover the expenses for the surveillance he had conducted, and asked him to acquire two uniforms to help get operatives into Naval Station Great Lakes to carry out the attack.
Pang allegedly sent $1,000 in cryptocurrency to the individual from Colombia, and the two agreed to demand more money in the future because they appeared on the verge of carrying out an actual attack.
On Oct. 15, 2022, Pang gave the cooperator two U.S. military uniforms and a cell phone that “will be used in a test for a detonator,” and the cooperator gave Pang another $2,000.
As part of his plea deal, Pang admitted that he and the individual from Colombia discussed a $1 million payment for his help in the plot to attack the naval station.
It’s unclear when Pang was taken into custody, or why the case was kept under seal for more than two years.
