DC Metro officer arrested for allegedly trying to aid ISIS
A Washington, D.C., Metro Transit Police officer was arrested Wednesday for allegedly working to help the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), law enforcement officials said in a statement.
Nicholas Young was part of the department for 12 years.
{mosads}He allegedly purchased special communication technologies that he intended to send to ISIS to help members avoid detection.
But Young was actually in contact with undercover agents of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington.
ABC News reported there was “no pending threat to the D.C. transportation system.”
Young, who lives in suburban Fairfax, Va., was arrested while at work. He will appear in federal court in Alexandria, Va., later Wednesday.
The FBI investigation of Young began in 2010, when his friend Zachary Chesser was arrested for assisting the terrorist organization.
In 2011, the investigators also arrested another one of Young’s acquaintances, Amine El Khalifi, who pleaded guilty to attempting a suicide attack at the U.S. Capitol Building in 2012.
Young also traveled to Libya, and told the FBI he was part of the rebel movement to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi.
Since 2014, Young met and emailed undercover investigators dozens of times, and wondered how it would be possible to send donations to ISIS.
“Unfortunately I have enough flags on my name that I can’t even buy a plane ticket without little alerts ending up in someone’s hands, so I imagine banking transactions are automatically monitored and will flag depending on what is going on,” Young wrote to one of the undercover investigators, according to ABC News.
Metro Transit officer arrested on charges of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. https://t.co/E5ihzT361u pic.twitter.com/CSwUpnW3c4
— ABC News (@ABC) August 3, 2016
Updated at 11:27 a.m.
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