BREAKING! Maryland Man Charged With Receiving Payments From ISIS To Attack Americans!!
According to NBC investigative reporter Scott Macfarlane, a Maryland man has been arrested by the FBI for planning terrorist attacks, and receiving payments FROM ISIS to do it.
If this is accurate, then it would be the first proven case of a directly ordered and funded ISIS attack planned on Americans. And that means there are possibly more on the way.
More from NBC Washington:
The FBI has arrested an Edgewood, Maryland man suspected of providing material support to ISIS.
Mohamad Elshinawy allegedly pledged his allegiance to ISIL and said his “soul was over there with the jihadists.”
The FBI said Elshinawy was instructed by ISIS to “cause destruction” or to conduct a terrorist attack in the United States. They say he allegedly received payments from a suspected ISIS operative through Western Union and PayPal by pretending to sell printers on eBay to mask the payments.
The FBI said Elshinawy used an Internet “hot spot” allowing him to access the Internet quasi-anonymously. They say he used a social media account under the pseudonym “Egyptt in USA.”
The FBI said he declared a “love of jihad.”
Elshinawy was formally charged Monday in U.S. District court in Baltimore.
He is also accused of lying to FBI agents who questioned him earlier this year.
He had been under investigation since early this year. The FBI says Elshinawy appears to have masked or cut off his communication with ISIS after special agents questioned him in July.
More from MacFarlane: