Men posing as federal law enforcement had arsenal, prosecutors say - The Washington Post
Two men accused of employees and cozying up to Secret Service agents had amassed an arsenal of firearms and ammunition, police gear, surveillance equipment and forged identity cards, prosecutors said Friday in a memo arguing the men should remain detained.
“The Defendants were not merely playing dress-up,” according to a memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in D.C. and alleging the men "engaged in conduct that represented a serious threat to the community, compromised the operations of a federal law enforcement agency, and created a potential risk to national security.”
Authorities on Wednesday arrested Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, and charged each with impersonating federal law enforcement, specifically with the Department of Homeland Security. A prosecutor said in court Thursday that a charge of conspiracy could be added, but authorities have not detailed a possible motive in the alleged scheme. Court papers also say Taherzadeh had passed himself off as an Army Ranger.
Taherzadeh and Ali are expected to appear in court Friday afternoon for a detention hearing. A federal defender representing both men at a court appearance Thursday declined to comment.
The two men were arrested after federal agents raided an upscale apartment complex called the Crossing in the District’s Navy Yard neighborhood and searched five apartments on three different floors and a penthouse.
Assistant U.S. attorney Joshua S. Rothstein said in court Thursday that Ali had three visas for travel to Pakistan and two for travel to Iran and had entered that country once. The prosecutor also said Ali claimed to one witness that he had ties to the Pakistani intelligence service.
The detention memo filed in court Friday reveals more extensive travels, saying records show Ali — a U.S. citizen apparently born in Pakistan — also visited Qatar four times since 2016, and once traveled through Turkey. The documents say an expired passport contained two visas for travel to Iran in 2019 and 2020, along with entry and exit stamps from that country. There were also visas from Pakistan and Egypt.
Rothstein cautioned in the document that while ties to the intelligence service have not been verified, “his claim must be taken literally and seriously” until further investigated.
The memorandum also sheds new details on how the men allegedly got into their expensive apartments, despite court records that showed Taherzadeh being trailed by creditors, lawsuits and debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The men “created false and fraudulent identities for purposes of signing documents, including the apartment leases,” the detention memo states.
At the apartment complex, authorizes said the men lavished gifts upon members of the Secret Service — including rent-free apartments that would cost $40,000 a year, iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen TV and a generator — and it was not entirely clear what, if anything, they wanted in return.
The Secret Service put on leave four employees connected to the case, though the bureau characterized them in court papers as witnesses who seemed to have been duped by a well-executed ploy. One of the agents was assigned to the first lady’s detail.
The defendants “are not law enforcement agents, and they are not involved in sanctioned covert activities,” the detention memo from prosecutors states. “Neither Defendant is even employed by the United States government. But their impersonation scheme was sufficiently realistic to convince other government employees, including law enforcement agents, of their false identities.”
The men seemed to use their allegedly fake credentials even on mundane tasks. Authorities said a Jiffy Lube receipt for a Chevrolet Impala listed “Secret Service US” on a customer form.
The newly filed documents also describe a cache of weapons and other law enforcement instruments, as well as computers that could reveal far more information.
“They procured, stored, and used all the tools of law enforcement and covert tradecraft: weaponry, including firearms, scopes, and brass knuckles,” as well as surveillance equipment, a drone, antennae and tools to manufacture identities, the court documents state.
They also had a machine to create and program Personal Identification Verification cards that can be used to access sensitive law enforcement computers, the memo states. Authorities described finding passport photographs, tactical gear, bullet-resistant vests, gas masks police lights, and law enforcement insignia.
Some residents had expressed concern that the men had gained access to personal details of tenants; the court papers say authorities did find a binder containing a list of residents, apartment numbers and contact information. The detention memo says Taherzadeh told authorities that Ali “had obtained the electronic access codes and a list of all of the tenants in the apartment complex.”
Numerous firearms were also found, prosecutors said, including a Glock 19 handgun loaded with 17 bullets and a Sig Sauer P229, linked to Taherzadeh, which authorities said he is not allowed to possess because of a past conviction for domestic violence. Prosecutors said one of the men offered to provide Secret Service agent with a rifle.
The documents also state that authorities found two videos of Taherzadeh shooting a handgun and an assault rifle at a shooting range in Northern Virginia. In one video, the document says Taherzadeh appears to be wearing a long sleeve shirt with a Secret Service insignia on the arm.
“As practiced liars who perpetrated a long-term deception — cooking up entirely fake personas and positions, elevating themselves with imagined pretensions to be above the law and above others — they cannot be trusted to return to court,” the detention memo says.
source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/08/men-impersonating-federal-officers-detention/
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.