A former sailor at the Naval Station Great Lakes has pleaded guilty to a 2022 terrorist plot to attack the base in Chicago’s northern suburbs on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, purportedly to avenge the death of an Iranian general killed by U.S. forces.
Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, of North Chicago, pleaded guilty to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense premises with the intent to obstruct the national defense of the U.S., court records show.
The charges say Pang, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China, took surveillance photos and videos of the outside and inside of the base, and agreed to provide military uniforms and a phone that could be used as a detonator for an explosive device to an undercover FBI
employee
Pang was charged under seal in 2022, and the guilty plea was secretly entered in November in U.S. District Court in Chicago, according to a news release from the Justice Department. A judge ordered the case unsealed Thursday.
Pang is being held without bond. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
According to the charges, the investigation into Pang began in 2021 when he communicated with someone in Colombia about “potentially assisting with a plan involving Iranian actors to conduct an attack against the United States to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani,” an Iranian Republican Guard general who was killed by the U.S. military in 2020, according to the Justice Department release.
Soleimani headed a sect of the IRG called the Quds Force that “conducts unconventional warfare and intelligence activities outside of Iran,” the release stated.
An undercover FBI employee posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force later talked online with the individual in Colombia, who put the employee in touch with Pang, who at the time was “stationed and residing at Naval Station Great Lakes,” the release stated.
Pang then communicated with the FBI through an encrypted messaging application about possible targets for the attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes “and other locations in the Chicago area,” the release stated.
In the fall of 2022, Pang personally met with another FBI undercover employee who was posing as an associate of the person in Colombia. One meeting took place outside of the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, while two others were held at a train station in Lake Bluff, the release stated.
As the plot to attack the naval base coalesced, Pang “displayed photos and videos on his phone of multiple locations inside the Naval Station,” the release stated. “He also provided two U.S. military uniforms — for operatives to wear inside the base during the attack — and a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.”
It was unclear from court records why Pang’s case was kept under seal for more than two years. A sentencing date has not been set.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
