Former Navy sailor pleads guilty in plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes

CHICAGO (WGN) — A former U.S. Navy sailor faces two decades in prison after pleading guilty to plotting to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, allegedly on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in order to avenge the death of one of its leaders.

The Justice Department says 38-year-old Xuanyu Harry Pang of North Chicago pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago "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 unsealed Thursday.

Pang is being held without bond and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Details of case

According to court records, Pang first communicated in 2021 with "an individual in Colombia" about assisting with a plan involving Iranians attacking the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani.

Killed by the U.S. military in 2020, Soleimani was a general in the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A covert FBI employee pretending to be an "affiliate" of the Quds Force got in touch with the individual in Colombia, the DOJ says. The FBI employee was eventually connected with Pang, who was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes at the time.

According to the DOJ, the covert FBI employee and Pang had online encrypted conversations, during which they discussed possible targets for an attack in the Chicago area. Pang and the person in Colombia then agreed to help the covert FBI employee with an attack, court records state.

In 2022, Pang also met multiple times with a person he believed to be an associate of the covert FBI employee. This person was working with the FBI as well.

During the meetings, the DOJ says Pang provided photos of the Naval Station to help with their planning of the attack. He also gave them military uniforms to wear, as well as a cell phone "that could be used as a test for a detonator," the DOJ says.

The FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are investigating the case.