From the U.S. Attorney
FORMER NAVY SAILOR PLEADS GUILTY TO PLOTTING TO ATTACK NAVAL STATION GREAT LAKES IN NORTH CHICAGO
CHICAGO — A former Navy sailor has pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to plotting to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Ill., purportedly on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
XUANYU HARRY PANG, 38, of North Chicago, Ill., pleaded guilty to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities, with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the United States.
The guilty plea was entered on Nov. 5, 2024, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and ordered unsealed today.
Pang is currently detained without bond in law enforcement custody.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy C. Daniel set sentencing for May 27, 2025, at 11:00 a.m.
The conviction is punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
The guilty plea was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Sue Bai, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, David J. Scott of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, and Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI.
Substantial assistance was provided by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
The case was investigated by the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is comprised of multiple federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron Bond, Vikas Didwania, and Brandon Stone of the Northern District of Illinois, with assistance from Trial Attorneys John Cella and Charles Kovats of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.
According to court records filed in the case, Pang communicated in the summer of 2021 with an individual 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, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the U.S. military in 2020.
The Quds Force is a branch of the IRGC that conducts unconventional warfare and intelligence activities outside of Iran.
A covert FBI employee, posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force, subsequently communicated online with the individual in Colombia about conducting an attack.
The individual in Colombia put the covert FBI employee in touch with Pang, who at the time was stationed and residing at Naval Station Great Lakes, court records show.
The pair communicated online through an encrypted messaging application about possible targets for the attack, including the Naval Station Great Lakes and other locations in the Chicago area.
Pang and the individual in Colombia agreed to help the covert FBI employee and his purported associates with their operation to conduct the attack in the United States, court records state.
On three occasions in the fall of 2022, Pang personally met with another individual working with the FBI who was posing as an associate of the covert FBI employee.
The first meeting took place outside of the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, and the two other meetings were held at a train station in Lake Bluff, Ill., court records show.
During the meetings in Lake Bluff, as the plot coalesced into an attack on the Naval Station, Pang displayed photos and videos on his phone of multiple locations inside the Naval Station.
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, the records show.
