A New York City man was arrested Wednesday and charged in federal court with conspiring to provide material support to the State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and to the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Mansuri Manuchekhri is accused of wiring $70,000 to individuals overseas overseas, including in Turkey – some with alleged intent to help supporters of ISIS and ISIS-K, the criminal complaint states.
Manuchekhri allegedly had at least two jihadist videos in a cloud account and possessed firearms in the United States, even though he is in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa that expired in 2016, the FBI and federal prosecutors said.
Manuchekhri lived in Sheepshead Bay and in Feb. 2022 recorded himself firing an assault rifle at a New Jersey shooting range, sending the video to an ISIS-affiliated person in Turkey with the message, “Thank God, I
am ready, brother.”
"I look forward to seeing the governments actual evidence, not mere allegations, proving that purportedly sending financial support to orphans and widows makes him a terrorist," an attorney for Manuchekhri tells News 4.
The arrest came following an investigation by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes the NYPD and FBI.
“The NYPD will stop at nothing to protect New Yorkers from those who support and pledge loyalty to violent ISIS extremists,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “I commend the NYPD investigators and all of our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners for identifying and arresting this gun-toting fraudster, and for thwarting the dangerous domestic threat he posed to our communities.”
