A former US Navy sailor, Xuanyu Harry Pang, has pleaded guilty to a federal charge related to a 2022 plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in northern Illinois. The plea agreement, unsealed on Thursday, revealed that Pang, 38, devised a plan involving Iranian actors to carry out an attack as retaliation for the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed in a US airstrike in 2020.
In November, Pang pleaded guilty in a Chicago federal court to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, premises, and utilities, specifically targeting Naval Station Great Lakes, with the intent to interfere with the national defense of the US.
Pang, who enlisted in the US Navy and began training at Naval Station Great Lakes in February 2022, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Court records indicate that Pang communicated with an individual in Colombia in 2021 about potentially assisting him with the plan.
An undercover FBI employee, posing as an affiliate of the Iranian armed forces, contacted the individual in Colombia to discuss the attack. The individual then connected the FBI employee with Pang, who was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes at the time.
Pang shared possible targets for the attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes and other locations in Chicago, with the individuals involved. He also discussed demanding a payment of $1 million for their assistance in the plot.
Meetings between Pang and the undercover FBI employee took place in Lake Bluff, Illinois, where Pang displayed photos and videos of locations inside the Naval Station. He agreed to provide military uniforms and a cell phone for the attack, receiving payment from the FBI employee.
Pang is currently detained without bond and is awaiting sentencing by a federal district court judge. The FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, with assistance from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is investigating the case.
