A former U.S. Navy sailor has admitted to planning a terrorist attack on behalf of Iran on a naval base outside Chicago, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Ill., when he plotted the attack, the Justice Department said. The Navy base sits about 30 miles north of downtown Chicago.
Pang started scheming in the summer of 2021, describing the plan as a revenge plot for the U.S. air strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.
He reached out to a person in Colombia, hoping they could put him in touch with “Iranian actors” to carry out the attack, according to federal investigators. However, the Colombia contact instead put Pang in touch with an undercover FBI agent posing as an affiliate of Iran’s Quds Force, which Soleimani led.
Pang then began to communicate with the undercover agent about his plans for an attack, considering possible targets in Chicago as well as the Navy base where he was stationed, the feds said. The duo eventually settled on an attack at the base.
As the plot continued, Pang met three times in the fall of 2022 with a different undercover FBI agent he believed was an Iranian associate, according to investigators.
Pang provided the second agent with two military uniforms for Iranian operatives to wear inside the base during the attack, as well as a cellphone to test as a bomb detonator, the feds said. He also showed off photos and videos from inside the base.
Charges against Pang were filed under seal in 2022, the Chicago Tribune reported. He also pleaded guilty under seal on Nov. 5, 2024, and the plot remained unknown until Thursday’s announcement by the Justice Department. It was not immediately clear why the case remained secret for two years.