A view of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street in New York on November 13, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
A homeless Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged with plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange to force a “restart” or “reset” of the U.S. government, according to a criminal complaint.
Harun Abdul-Malik Yener came under FBI scrutiny in February after agents received a tip that he had transferred bomb-making schematics to Stored in a storage unit in Coral Springs.
With Jena’s permission, FBI agents searched the storage room in early March and found spiral-bound notebooks with drawings of mines, explosives, missiles and other improvised explosive devices, the complaint said.
The indictment states that Jena told agents at the time that he was building a “rocket” out of a very “volatile” chemical mixture that would explode if not mixed properly. He also claimed he was recruited through Facebook Messenger with the intention of joining ISIS overseas, but ultimately decided not to join because he did not believe the terrorist group would be successful in achieving its goals, the indictment states.
Towards the end of the interview, he told FBI agents that he was waiting for the right moment to take action inside the United States, “I’m just waiting for some kind of loophole to open up and then I can go, ah, right there,” the report said. .
Days later, agents returned to the unit with a search warrant and found “bomb-making sketches, numerous watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics” that “could be used to construct explosive devices,” according to the indictment.
Undercover FBI agents later contacted Jenner and convinced him to help him carry out the attack. They tracked Jena all summer and into the fall.
In October, he asked an undercover agent to drive him to a Walmart, where he picked up items and tools needed to make an improvised explosive device, including a soldering iron and a multimeter voltage reader, the indictment said. He then told the undercover agent that he decided to use the New York Stock Exchange as the location to detonate the improvised explosive device, the indictment said.
“There’s a place where it’s really easy to … the stock exchange, and that’s going to be a huge hit,” Jenner said, according to the indictment. “A lot of people are going to support it. They’re going to see it and think, man, this guy has a point. It makes sense, they’re… robbing us.”
Days later, he told a group of undercover FBI agents that he wanted to bomb the stock exchange the week before Thanksgiving. He also said he wanted to send a statement to a news station explaining his motives and goals, according to the indictment.
On Nov. 12, he made a series of recordings with the help of an undercover FBI agent and said he wanted to send them to NBC News on the day of the explosion or the day after, the complaint said.
“What you just witnessed on the stock exchange … is just the beginning of a new era. A new revolution,” he said in one of the recordings, according to the complaint.
“We ask and encourage others to follow suit and pursue change,” he added.
Jena was charged with attempting to use explosives to damage or destroy any building used for interstate or foreign commerce. It was unclear whether he had a lawyer.
His arrest was first reported by Seamus Hughes court watch.
