Washington — A Tajik man living in New York was arrested and charged with conspiring to provide material support to the ISIS and ISIS-K terrorist groups, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Mansuri Manuchekhri, a Tajik national who was illegally living in Brooklyn, facilitated the transfer of over $70,000 to ISIS-affiliated individuals in Turkey and Syria between December 2021 and June 2023, including to one person who was arrested in Turkey for attacking a church in Istanbul in 2024. ISIS-K, or ISIS-Khorasan, is one of the terrorist group’s most dangerous branches and publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.
Manuchekhri was taken into custody after a close family member reported him to a New York terrorism tip line, warning of potential violence and saying that he had threatened to kill the family member, according to an affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Prosecutors alleged that Manuchekhri discussed the payments at length with someone affiliated with ISIS in Turkey, who told him that the money would go to current ISIS soldiers and family members of dead ISIS fighters. They also alleged that Manuchekhri publicly expressed his support of past ISIS attacks on the U.S. and had multiple ISIS propaganda videos on his iCloud account.
Manuchekhri would often train using firearms, prosecutors said, and in two instances sent videos of himself shooting guns to an ISIS contact in Turkey. He allegedly said that he trains with guns “at least once or twice a week,” and wrote in another message, “Thank God, I am ready, brother.”
He was also charged with illegal possession of firearms, including an AK-47 and a tactical rifle, and immigration fraud. An attorney for Manuchekhri did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The affidavit included photos allegedly taken from Manuchekhri’s iCloud account showing him posed with various firearms at shooting ranges:
Justice Department
Prosecutors said that Manuchekhri entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2016 and stayed in the country illegally after it expired. In March 2017, he paid an American citizen to enter into a sham marriage with him so he could obtain legal status in the United States, according to the affidavit.
When immigration authorities asked for more documentation about the marriage, Manuchekhri filed for divorce and claimed he was a victim of domestic violence, hoping that would help him become a lawful permanent resident through other legal means, the government said.
Both of Manuchekhri’s immigration petitions were fraudulent, prosecutors alleged, adding that they have evidence he never lived with his wife and that utility bills submitted as evidence that the pair lived together were fake.
Manuchekhri appeared before a federal judge on Wednesday and was ordered to be detained as proceedings play out, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York told CBS News.
The arrest follows a spate of terrorism warnings from the U.S. government, with national security officials pointing to a system that’s blinking red in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel and the emergence of terrorism hot spots in Central Asia.
An ongoing FBI investigation into the New Year’s Day truck attack on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street found the attacker posted videos declaring his support for ISIS shortly before the deadly rampage. The attacker killed 14 people and injured dozens more when he rammed a pickup truck down the popular tourist spot.
Following the attack, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center circulated a law enforcement bulletin warning of the threat of violence from lone offenders: “Official ISIS messaging in the group’s flagship products from 2014 and 2016 called for attackers so use vehicles as weapons in addition to edged weapons and firearms, and pro-ISIS media outlets and the group’s online supporters regularly recirculate or re-purpose those produces in a variety of forums.”
Last October, the FBI arrested Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi for allegedly planning an Election Day terrorist attack in Oklahoma City. Federal prosecutors said the Afghan national took steps to carry out an attack in the U.S., including by trying to sell his family home, relocate family abroad and stockpile firearms and ammunition.
Last June, federal agents apprehended eight men from Tajikistan on immigration charges amid concern the men — who entered via the Southwest border and lived in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia — were in the early stages of plotting a possible terrorist attack on U.S. soil, according to multiple U.S. officials.
In February 2023, Naser Almadaoji, an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations, namely ISIS and ISIS-K.
