Massachusetts teen charged with attempting to make use of present playing cards to lift funds for ISIS
A Massachusetts teenager was arrested Thursday and charged with knowingly overlaying up the supply of sources he supposed to provide to the worldwide terror group ISIS.
Mateo Ventura, 18, of Wakefield, Massachusetts, is accused of shopping for digital present playing cards and giving them, by way of the darkish net, to an individual he believed to be an ISIS supporter.
As a part of the scheme, the ISIS beneficiary was to promote the playing cards for barely lower than face worth, with the proceeds getting used for “war on kuffar,” or those that don’t imagine in Islam.
Mr. Ventura is accused of first reaching out to the purported ISIS supporter, the truth is an undercover FBI agent, in August 2021, when he was nonetheless a juvenile.
Between August 2021 and August 2022, Mr. Ventura is accused of offering 26 playing cards value $965 to the agent for use for the fee of jihad. Between January and May 2023, the now-adult Mr. Ventura supplied 16 extra playing cards value $705 on this method, the Justice Department contended.
An FBI affidavit additionally stated that Mr. Ventura expressed needs to go overseas and battle for ISIS. After calling the thought off in September 2022, Mr. Ventura was talked again into it in January 2023, main him to buy a Turkish Airlines flight to Cairo for April 10, 2023.
Mr. Ventura didn’t find yourself taking the flight, and didn’t reschedule it. Instead, in accordance with authorities, Mr. Ventura reached out himself to the FBI, providing to disclose info on future terrorist assaults in alternate for $10 million.
“I want the cash and immunity no funny games I known you thought I am retarded fool but jokes on you I will not admit I sent this or communicate until the cash is delivered [FBI AGENT 1] I am speaking to you dumb little bimbo this is my only offer try more offensive actions and you will regret it,” Mr. Ventura wrote anonymously to an FBI tip kind on April 10, in accordance with the FBI affidavit for his arrest.
If convicted of knowingly concealing the supply of his purported help to ISIS, Mr. Ventura would resist 10 years in jail, a advantageous of as much as $250,000, and as much as a lifetime of parole.
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