Speaker 1: You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
Speaker 1: production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: In the criminal justice system, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
Speaker 2: to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
Speaker 2: and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
Speaker 2: that is defined American history. These are their stories. September eleventh,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, New York City.
Speaker 1: It started as a beautiful fall morning, crisp air and
Speaker 1: bright blue sky. People grab coffee, caught subways and ported
Speaker 1: to offices. Then a jetliner slammed into the North tower
Speaker 1: of the World Trade Center. It appeared to back sharply
Speaker 1: and smash directly, perhaps purposefully, into a.
Speaker 3: On the thirty sixth floor, facing west. And I had
Speaker 3: just commuted through the Trade Center, and I saw the
Speaker 3: side of the north tower explode, and I instinctively yelled,
Speaker 3: and I got a bomb as I saw papers floating
Speaker 3: in the air and fire ripping through the building, and
Speaker 3: it looked to me like a giant air conditioner kind
Speaker 3: of tumble out of the side of the building. When
Speaker 3: I yelled bomb, my friend said, no plane hit it,
Speaker 3: But I didn't see the plane from the angle I was,
Speaker 3: but I saw the explosion and hre like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's a perfect day out. How could that be a plane.
Speaker 1: Seventeen minutes later, a second plane hit.
Speaker 4: Oh, oh my goodness, there's another one. Seems to be
Speaker 4: on purpose.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 6: Now you lean.
Speaker 5: Now it's obvious.
Speaker 3: I think that there's a second plane just crashed into
Speaker 3: the World Trade Center. And then I saw the South
Speaker 3: tower explode. So I got the hell out of the building,
Speaker 3: you know. I knew that it was a terror attack,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to be killed.
Speaker 1: At the Pentagon, flames rose from a gaping hole in
Speaker 1: its western wall. In Pennsylvania, a fourth plane crashed into
Speaker 1: a field after passengers fought back.
Speaker 4: It is absolutely an appalling day, not only here in Manhattan,
Speaker 4: but also in Washington, where the Pentagon also was apparently
Speaker 4: the subject of a strike by one of these hijacked
Speaker 4: airliners flying bombs.
Speaker 1: Sirens wailed across Lower Manhattan. Crowds ran as the towers fell,
Speaker 1: ash and paper drifted from the sky.
Speaker 7: I saw the building.
Speaker 2: Say that again, I didn't hear you.
Speaker 1: That's the building just coming down. By the end of
Speaker 1: the morning, thousands were dead, and for families across New
Speaker 1: York and far beyond. The grief was overwhelming. Joe Connor
Speaker 1: was among them. His cousin Steve, worked in the towers.
Speaker 3: We went into the Saint Patrick's Churches, a little church
Speaker 3: down in like China Town, and I came out of
Speaker 3: there and the smoke was around them. They had collapsed. Actually,
Speaker 3: while we were in the church saying at prayer, I
Speaker 3: knew Steve wasn't.
Speaker 1: Come at home. In the middle of that devastation. Joe
Speaker 1: also recognized the fragile line between life and death. People
Speaker 1: within feet of each other were only mere blocks. Some
Speaker 1: survived and others did not. But the attacks left another
Speaker 1: truth as well. Even with its many safeguards in place,
Speaker 1: law enforcement hadn't seen this coming incomprehensible.
Speaker 5: We plan for all kinds of terrorist.
Speaker 3: Attacks, a biological warfare, chemical warfare, but nobody envisioned to
Speaker 3: commercial airlines slamming into the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: It was the single deadliest terrorist attack ever in the world,
Speaker 1: and in the days that followed, leaders vowed change.
Speaker 7: This is a vicious attack upon New York, It's an
Speaker 7: attack upon America. It's an attack upon the whole concept
Speaker 7: of freedom in our way of life. And we cannot
Speaker 7: let these attacks succeed.
Speaker 1: The mission was clear, never again.
Speaker 6: I got a call, get out to LaGuardia Airport. There's
Speaker 6: been a bombing.
Speaker 1: There was a thirty two foot crater in front of
Speaker 1: what was left of the building. I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, Am I dead? Am I alive? Where am I?
Speaker 1: I'm Aniseega NICOLASI.
Speaker 3: That's why terrorism works. It doesn't care who you are.
Speaker 1: From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts, this is law and order,
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. The months after the nine to eleven
Speaker 1: attacks were marked by thousands of funerals. Nearly three thousand
Speaker 1: lives were lost that day, and for almost a year,
Speaker 1: recovery teams moved around the clock at ground zero, one
Speaker 1: point eight million tons of rubble were removed in the
Speaker 1: search for remains and answers for families, first responders, and
Speaker 1: an entire city. Life would never be the same, and
Speaker 1: for the country, everything felt different. A sense of safety
Speaker 1: had vanished. In response, law enforcement knew they needed to
Speaker 1: meet new threats head on. Prevention became the ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: The Joint Terrorism Task Force already existed in New York
Speaker 1: pre nine to eleven, but after this it was transformed.
Speaker 1: Its ranks swelled with agents, detectives, prosecutors, and analysts. The
Speaker 1: walls between agencies came down, and the JTTF became a
Speaker 1: massive coalition. Here's one of the people who was brought
Speaker 1: into that fight.
Speaker 8: My name is Robert As. I was investigator for the
Speaker 8: New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and I was an
Speaker 8: investigator for the threat Squad.
Speaker 1: Robert was part of the Brooklyn DA's office, but his
Speaker 1: path changed course when the FBI came looking for reinforcements.
Speaker 8: I went over to the JGTF in two thousand and three.
Speaker 8: I was working in a threat squad, and at that point,
Speaker 8: even two years after nine to eleven, we had thousands
Speaker 8: and thousands of leads that we were just running down
Speaker 8: from a call center that came from calls from the public.
Speaker 1: Most of those tips led nowhere, But one night in
Speaker 1: early two thousand and six, Robert got something that felt different.
Speaker 8: I was working the four twelve shift and it was
Speaker 8: kind of late at night, and I got the lead.
Speaker 1: The details were thin, but the subject was alarming.
Speaker 8: This individual that was from Brooklyn but was down in Guyana,
Speaker 8: South America, was talking about blowing up the pipelines. That
Speaker 8: led to the fuel tanks a chafcreport.
Speaker 1: The first step was to look into the person purportedly
Speaker 1: making the threats to help assess if it was real
Speaker 1: or just talk.
Speaker 8: Subsequently, we did some background checks on the person that
Speaker 8: supposedly was making the threats. Russell defriedis the fact that
Speaker 8: the person worked at JFK can keep it a little
Speaker 8: more validity.
Speaker 1: What began as a vague tip suddenly felt legitimate. It
Speaker 1: meant to FreeDOS knew the airport, its routines, and its vulnerabilities,
Speaker 1: and that made his threat far harder to dismiss. This
Speaker 1: was now aunofficial investigation. A potential plan to blow up
Speaker 1: pipelines at JFK Airport quickly got the attention of other agencies.
Speaker 9: My name is Marshall Lee Miller, and I worked for
Speaker 9: many years at the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern
Speaker 9: District of New York.
Speaker 1: The Joint Terrorism Task Force was built on the concept
Speaker 1: of partnership. From the beginning, prosecutors were looped in navigating
Speaker 1: the legal side, working alongside investigators.
Speaker 9: The US Attorney's offices, both in the Eastern and the
Speaker 9: Southern District of New York were embedded essentially in the JTTFS.
Speaker 9: We had investigators that worked with their colleagues at the JTTF,
Speaker 9: and prosecutors were there regularly working through cases and doing
Speaker 9: intake of cases and discussing how to assign cases and
Speaker 9: how to divide cases between the Eastern and southern districts
Speaker 9: of New York.
Speaker 1: In every case, the stakes were the same. Public safety
Speaker 1: was number one.
Speaker 9: Job Number one for the Joint Terrorism Task Force and
Speaker 9: all of its members is making sure that there is
Speaker 9: no terrorist attack. So one of the first orders of
Speaker 9: business was to try to figure out how real this
Speaker 9: potential plot was.
Speaker 1: The question was how to get close enough to find out.
Speaker 9: Really early stage, One of the first things that was
Speaker 9: done was to look to see whether there was a
Speaker 9: source of information working with law enforcement that had any
Speaker 9: kind of connectivity to Russell Defriedis, the individual that had
Speaker 9: been identified by that incoming tip.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement began piecing together Defritas's background, and.
Speaker 9: It quickly became apparent that mister Defritis was a naturalized
Speaker 9: US citizen from Guyana and that he had worked as
Speaker 9: a baggage handler at John F. Kennedy International Airport in
Speaker 9: years past.
Speaker 1: But knowing his backstory wasn't enough.
Speaker 9: In all of these investigations, all of the players involved
Speaker 9: are always worrying about whether they are seeing the whole
Speaker 9: picture or whether you're only seeing part of the picture.
Speaker 9: And like an iceberg below the waterline, there's some much
Speaker 9: bigger thing happening with activity that's outside of your site
Speaker 9: line that might result in an attack while you're investigating.
Speaker 8: Our first investigative step would be to verify the information
Speaker 8: that we had to see if this person was talking
Speaker 8: about blowing up the pipelines, the goal would be to
Speaker 8: get an informant to meet mister Defriedis and to have
Speaker 8: that same conversation with them again to see if it
Speaker 8: is valid.
Speaker 1: They couldn't send just anyone into talk to the Friedas
Speaker 1: whoever went in had to be credible and cautious. Agents
Speaker 1: spent weeks coming through files looking for someone who could
Speaker 1: naturally slip into de Freedis's orbit.
Speaker 8: We were looking through the FBI database for different reports
Speaker 8: of interviews and different information about FBI informants throughout the country.
Speaker 8: It would be days and weeks of just reading reports
Speaker 8: of different FBI informants, and not just for terrorists, about
Speaker 8: the criminal informants, just to find the right fit. So
Speaker 8: we came across an individual that had some ties to
Speaker 8: a local mosque in Brooklyn that mister Defritas also had
Speaker 8: ties to.
Speaker 1: For law enforcement, the decision to use an informant is
Speaker 1: really an easy one. Credibility and reliability are always an issue,
Speaker 1: but if their information can be corroborated, it can sometimes
Speaker 1: be worth its weight in gold.
Speaker 9: And so the next step was for the source that
Speaker 9: was identified who had acquaintances and friends in common with
Speaker 9: mister Defritis. That's when he was identified and brought in
Speaker 9: to speak with investigators and then sent to places that
Speaker 9: were where mister Defritis was known to frequent based on
Speaker 9: some initial surveillance, so that they could bump into each
Speaker 9: other in as natural way as possible, and the intent
Speaker 9: would be for them to strike up a conversation and
Speaker 9: see whether mister Defritis would ultimately open up to the source.
Speaker 1: With the plan in place, the case shifted. Here's former
Speaker 1: FBI Special Agent Kim Widow.
Speaker 5: My role was the source handler. That was a full
Speaker 5: time job and tires why because during the day we
Speaker 5: were riding up the reports that he was providing us,
Speaker 5: we were listening to the recordings that were being made
Speaker 5: in his truck that he was getting when he was
Speaker 5: sitting in a cafe with the Fritis or just running around.
Speaker 5: We were getting the permissions for him to conduct consential monitoring,
Speaker 5: to fly to Guyana, meeting with him to debrief him,
Speaker 5: and late night phone calls.
Speaker 1: Kim recalls the background of the man they chose.
Speaker 5: Our source had just gotten out of federal prison and
Speaker 5: had converted to Islam in prison, so he was able
Speaker 5: to move in a variety of different groups within New York.
Speaker 5: There are two different sects of Islam, Sunni and she,
Speaker 5: and being a new convert, he was able to explore
Speaker 5: both of them without raising any type of suspicion. And
Speaker 5: they found out that they knew some folks in common
Speaker 5: that gave our source an inn and some bona fides
Speaker 5: with the Fretis.
Speaker 1: To protect his identity, he would be known by a
Speaker 1: single name.
Speaker 5: What he was known as in the plot was honest,
Speaker 5: so we'll call him honest.
Speaker 1: In reality. Most cooperators don't come forward out of civic duty.
Speaker 1: More often they are driven by self interest, like resolving
Speaker 1: their own charges or for money, and a NASA agreed
Speaker 1: to cooperate was no different.
Speaker 9: In this matter. This source was out on bail and
Speaker 9: had a pending sentencing that needed to take place, and
Speaker 9: so he was cooperating largely because he was hoping for
Speaker 9: a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation.
Speaker 5: To be his full time job. And to that end,
Speaker 5: we were going to provide him with a stipend that
Speaker 5: would enable him to pay rent on a very modest
Speaker 5: place in New York City and to have a vehicle. Also,
Speaker 5: as we got to know this individual, he was a
Speaker 5: very I don't want to say patriotic, but New York
Speaker 5: City was his city and he didn't want anybody to
Speaker 5: do another nine to eleven type attack. He didn't want
Speaker 5: his friends and family to be subject to that in
Speaker 5: New York City. So it was a combination of all
Speaker 5: of those things that motivated him.
Speaker 1: A NAS had another quality that made him stand out
Speaker 1: his ability to blend in.
Speaker 5: We found somebody who was very charismatic, very able to
Speaker 5: adapt to all kinds of different situations, and who was
Speaker 5: very street smart. So this was somebody that we had
Speaker 5: lucked into that could move in various different circles and
Speaker 5: be a chameleon and do whatever the situation required him
Speaker 5: to do. He had survived in a bad neighborhood and
Speaker 5: associations with drug dealing organizations before he went to prison
Speaker 5: the last time, and just had a ton of street smarts.
Speaker 1: The mission for a noose was clear. Get close to
Speaker 1: Russell Defriedis and find out whether his talk of blowing
Speaker 1: up JFK was just words or an actual plan.
Speaker 5: If he actually potentially could come up with an operational plot,
Speaker 5: or if he has contacts with somebody who could come
Speaker 5: up with a real plan against either JFK or any
Speaker 5: other target in New York City.
Speaker 1: A successful strike could ripple through national security and global travel.
Speaker 5: It is one of the biggest airports in the particularly
Speaker 5: for international flights. The sheer physical size of JFK Airport
Speaker 5: is huge. It has multiple terminals, hundreds of flights coming
Speaker 5: in every hour departing, and there is a large support
Speaker 5: operation there. The mail from overseas comes in cargo. Pretty
Speaker 5: much any and everything you can think of that comes
Speaker 5: into the United States can come in through JFK Airport.
Speaker 5: It's also located in Queens, in an area right off
Speaker 5: of a very busy interstate. It's in a high density
Speaker 5: neighborhood and on the edge of JFK right before you
Speaker 5: leave the premises and go into one of these high
Speaker 5: density neighborhoods, there's tanks and tanks of aviation fuel for
Speaker 5: refueling all of the air line traffic that comes in
Speaker 5: and out of JFK, and that was where the focus
Speaker 5: was of this JFK plot was on those fuel storage
Speaker 5: tanks and the line that came in through queens that
Speaker 5: brought the fuel into those tanks for the airplanes going
Speaker 5: in and out of JFK.
Speaker 1: And NAS would need to get close to Russell Defrieda's
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be easy. It was a balancing act
Speaker 1: for law enforcement as well.
Speaker 5: We have to walk a thin line between putting a
Speaker 5: human source into an investigation and making sure that they
Speaker 5: don't entrap a subject. So at the beginning, we really
Speaker 5: didn't tell the source anything more than just hey, here's
Speaker 5: where this sky's going to be, go meeting, go tell
Speaker 5: us about him.
Speaker 1: And NAS had to figure out where Defridis went and
Speaker 1: how he spent his time and then try to naturally
Speaker 1: cross his path, and the FBI would help.
Speaker 5: We have to use least intrusive investigative means, and one
Speaker 5: of the least intrusive means is just physical surveillance, just
Speaker 5: following somebody around, and the case squad had followed the
Speaker 5: FreeDOS around found out that he was selling some goods
Speaker 5: at Gertz Plaza mall in Queen's.
Speaker 1: That gave a nosin opening when we knew.
Speaker 5: What his routine was. You just have the source bump
Speaker 5: into them. So he was able to offer to freed
Speaker 5: Us a ride to Freedis didn't have a car, so
Speaker 5: that was one of the early things, just driving him
Speaker 5: to wherever he needed to go and chatting.
Speaker 1: Their relationship grew quickly.
Speaker 5: They went out for meals a lot of the time.
Speaker 5: Da Freedis didn't have a lot of money, so he
Speaker 5: liked the fact that our source was paying for meals.
Speaker 5: After they got out and run a few errands, and
Speaker 5: he just kind of began to rely on the source
Speaker 5: as his assistant, his helper, his confidant, and that relationship
Speaker 5: just developed as they worked together and broke bread together.
Speaker 1: Those small favors soon turned into trust.
Speaker 5: At first, we weren't recording the conversations because consentual monitoring
Speaker 5: has to have certain approvals. We had to get the
Speaker 5: AUSA on board for that. We had to get FBI
Speaker 5: management on board to send him out with recording devices.
Speaker 5: So we had to make sure that he really was
Speaker 5: talking about committing an act of violence before we could
Speaker 5: do that. And it was pretty quick for Defreedos to
Speaker 5: bring him into confidence on the fact that he wanted
Speaker 5: to do something.
Speaker 1: And from there law enforcement sprang into action.
Speaker 5: We were able to wire up the source and listen
Speaker 5: to the conversations.
Speaker 1: The surveillance then widened, phone calls, in person meetings, and
Speaker 1: every conversation in between. The rhetoric wasn't just casual bluster.
Speaker 8: When Russell Lfriedez talked about the plot, he just had
Speaker 8: this passion in his voice that gave you chills that
Speaker 8: he really wanted to do something. He just had this hatred.
Speaker 1: Defriedis's motives were tangled. It was a shifting mix of
Speaker 1: grievances and ambition.
Speaker 9: I certainly think a primary motivation was the view that
Speaker 9: there was a conflict going on between the United States
Speaker 9: and other allies of the United States, Israel, Europe, other places,
Speaker 9: and the Muslim world, and that this would be something
Speaker 9: sort of a geehad that mister de Friedez could engage
Speaker 9: in as part of doing his part in that conflict.
Speaker 1: There were also more personal dimensions.
Speaker 9: At times he would gripe about the way he was
Speaker 9: treated as an African American and as a Muslim at
Speaker 9: the airport by people when he worked there.
Speaker 1: And sometimes his ambitions veered more towards greed.
Speaker 9: There were moments where there was talk about whether they
Speaker 9: could sell the idea and make some money off it,
Speaker 9: as well to different higher level and more well trained
Speaker 9: terrorist actors and groups, groups like Al Qaeda, the Iranian
Speaker 9: Revolutionary Guard Corps or IERGC terrorist group in Trinidad known
Speaker 9: as Jamatt al.
Speaker 1: Muslimin Investigators also realized that Defridis was searching for significance,
Speaker 1: a way to turn his anger into action, and before
Speaker 1: long his talks with Anas veered into specific schemes.
Speaker 8: Once he started opening up a little bit, it happened
Speaker 8: fairly quickly where he started talking about the JFK PLUT.
Speaker 1: What came next erased any doubt. This was a plan
Speaker 1: for mass destruction and there.
Speaker 8: Would be something that was bigger than nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: By the spring of two thousand and six, FBI informant
Speaker 1: Anas had become a confidant of Russell Defriedis, who was
Speaker 1: threatening a large scale terrorist attack and once Defrieda's trusted Anas,
Speaker 1: he talked a lot.
Speaker 5: He felt very comfortable, very quickly opening up that, hey,
Speaker 5: it would be easy to attack that fuel farm out
Speaker 5: at JFK, and JFK is a huge airport. I believe
Speaker 5: one of his quotes was, it's named after President Kennedy,
Speaker 5: and if you could blow up the airport, it would
Speaker 5: be like killing the man twice. He wanted to make
Speaker 5: a very big splash his budding career is a want
Speaker 5: to be terrorist.
Speaker 1: And Nas quickly became the one Deafriedis leaned on.
Speaker 5: Defridis didn't seem to have any other very close acquaintances
Speaker 5: in New York, so he latched onto the source fairly
Speaker 5: quickly and started bringing him into the plot.
Speaker 1: The scope of the case soon expanded beyond New York.
Speaker 9: It became quite clear quite quickly that mister Defritis was
Speaker 9: actively considering engaging in terrorist activity, and that he was
Speaker 9: reaching out to and was already in contact with a
Speaker 9: number of potential co conspirators overseas in Trinidad and Guyana.
Speaker 5: I believe he also told the source at one time
Speaker 5: that it was the Middle Eastern Muslims that were getting
Speaker 5: all of the credit for defending their religion against the
Speaker 5: American oppressors, and there were plenty of folks down in
Speaker 5: Guyana and in the Caribbean who were willing to take
Speaker 5: up arms for the cause as well. In a matter
Speaker 5: of months, he was suggesting that they take a trip
Speaker 5: down to Guyana to meet these folks and to try
Speaker 5: to get some help for the plot.
Speaker 8: And that's when he came across Abdul Kadir in Guyana.
Speaker 8: He pitched the idea to Abdul Kadir, and Abdul Kadir
Speaker 8: took an interest.
Speaker 1: In the plot, and Kadir was well connected.
Speaker 8: Abdulkadir was involved in the government in Guyana. He was
Speaker 8: in the parliament and he was the mayor of this
Speaker 8: town of Lynden, Guyana. It's also ran a mosque in Guyana.
Speaker 1: Kadir's connections made the plot more viable.
Speaker 8: A lot of the conversations had to do with the
Speaker 8: funding of it in Abdul Kadir's contacts. Abdul Kadir had
Speaker 8: contacts in Iran, and that was something that we were
Speaker 8: very concerned about.
Speaker 1: The investigation had reached a turning point.
Speaker 8: To us, it appeared they start to have the means
Speaker 8: of inducting an operation. They had an individual that, according
Speaker 8: to him, he had access to funds, to weapons, and
Speaker 8: access to individuals outside of our country and of Guyana
Speaker 8: that could possibly help with this plot.
Speaker 1: And Kadir wasn't the only new name.
Speaker 8: So at that point, Kadeer introduced the Friedas and the
Speaker 8: Nas to some contacts in Trinidad. So they went to
Speaker 8: Trinidad and met Kareem Ibraheim. He was an imam in
Speaker 8: Trinidad that supposedly had connections that could get the plot
Speaker 8: off the ground, and that's why Kadir introduced to Friedis
Speaker 8: to Kareem. So the fourth individual was abdel Noir. He
Speaker 8: was an associated of Bbram Kareem.
Speaker 1: In the span of months, a grudge carried by one
Speaker 1: man in Brooklyn had become a multi national conspiracy linking
Speaker 1: New York, Guyana, and Trinidad.
Speaker 8: There was a lot of conversation about how long we
Speaker 8: should go with this and let it go. There were
Speaker 8: definitely some voices within the FBI that wanted to take
Speaker 8: it down at that point and arrest freed.
Speaker 1: S, But for the agent's closest to the investigation, the
Speaker 1: path was clear. Let to freedis keep talking, keep planning
Speaker 1: and see who else would emerge.
Speaker 8: It wasn't our informant that was in charge of this,
Speaker 8: It was to Friedas that was leading it and looking
Speaker 8: for other people to do this. So we felt it
Speaker 8: was necessary to let that progress on its own and
Speaker 8: see where it went before we took it down.
Speaker 1: And the further the plot deepened, the more danger for Anas.
Speaker 5: We had to take a lot of different tactics to
Speaker 5: keep him safe. We had a team down there that
Speaker 5: was shadowing him, but they couldn't get too close. He
Speaker 5: was living and staying with some of the co conspirators,
Speaker 5: so he was living this twenty four to seven while
Speaker 5: he was in Guyana.
Speaker 1: Every day brought new risks, not only for him but
Speaker 1: for the people waiting for him at home.
Speaker 5: When we first started working with him, he was single
Speaker 5: and fancy free, and by the into this married with
Speaker 5: the family, so that was very difficult for him to juggle.
Speaker 1: The jtt APP needed to ensure the safety of his
Speaker 1: family too, and Nas couldn't keep the secret any longer.
Speaker 5: At some point, the source had to bring his wife
Speaker 5: into this and let her know that hey working for
Speaker 5: the government. This is why I'm gone all the time.
Speaker 5: I'm not out running around and carousing, but I'm meeting
Speaker 5: with these people. It's the job that I do and
Speaker 5: prepare her for the fact that at some point her
Speaker 5: life was going to be uprooted for their safety.
Speaker 1: And it would soon change everything for Adnas and his family.
Speaker 5: We were going to have to take them away from
Speaker 5: where they'd been living, that they were going to have
Speaker 5: to pretty much go underground and isolate themselves from everyone
Speaker 5: they'd known before for a while to keep themselves safe.
Speaker 1: Defridis would bring that on sooner than they'd planned.
Speaker 9: There was a key moment in the case where after
Speaker 9: meeting with potential co conspirators, Monsie de Fried has decided
Speaker 9: he wanted to conduct surveillance at JFK and indeed take
Speaker 9: some video tape of JFK Airport as well as get
Speaker 9: we think of now sort of Google Maps, sort of
Speaker 9: satellite imagery but just from Google of the airport, but
Speaker 9: also did do visits to the airport where they videotaped
Speaker 9: the airport and they particularly focused on the fuel tanks,
Speaker 9: which if you've driven to JFK Airport at times you
Speaker 9: can see them from the highway, These big fuel tanks
Speaker 9: that have the airline fuel that airplanes use.
Speaker 1: The video set the stage for the final phase.
Speaker 9: So that was a big moment and I think again
Speaker 9: some thinking at that point of is it now time
Speaker 9: to take this case down? Given the video tapes and
Speaker 9: the fact that Minstere de Friedis wanted to take those
Speaker 9: videotapes back to Guyana to show them to potential plotters. Ultimately,
Speaker 9: again the decision was made that we want to see
Speaker 9: who he would show the video too, and so there
Speaker 9: was then a final trip to Diana into Trinidad where
Speaker 9: meetings occurred with ultimately the defendants who were indicted with
Speaker 9: mister Defriedis, Abdulnor, Abdul Kadir Kareem Ibraheim, and audio tapes
Speaker 9: were made overseas where they talked about the operation, ways
Speaker 9: to go about it, and who the right people to
Speaker 9: present the plot were.
Speaker 1: Defriedis used his homemade surveillance tape to find powerful backers
Speaker 1: who could help turn the scheme into reality.
Speaker 9: It was presented to that Trinidadian terrorist group leader who
Speaker 9: basically said things are too hot here and this is
Speaker 9: going to draw too much government attention and declined to
Speaker 9: join the plot. And then ultimately a decision was made
Speaker 9: that would be presented to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
Speaker 9: and a emissary would be sent to Iran with potentially
Speaker 9: the videos of JFK Airport, with the Google Earth images,
Speaker 9: and with the plan for the plot to secure monetary
Speaker 9: support and expertise. And it was at that point where
Speaker 9: the judgment was made that we're now going to lose
Speaker 9: the ability to control the threat associated with this plot
Speaker 9: if it lands in the hands in er on of
Speaker 9: the IRGC.
Speaker 1: The possibility of losing control forced the FBI's hand.
Speaker 5: The freight train got moving at a very high rate
Speaker 5: of speed. We were looking to find the perfect opportunity
Speaker 5: where we could disrupt this plot before it actually got
Speaker 5: to somebody who could provide them the means and opportunity their.
Speaker 1: Race was on.
Speaker 10: Government officials say they have uncovered a terror plot to
Speaker 10: attack New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport, and
Speaker 10: attack which one of the suspected terrorists said would quote
Speaker 10: cause greater destruction than the September eleventh attacks. The target
Speaker 10: a jet fuel artery that runs from New Jersey to
Speaker 10: the New York Airport.
Speaker 1: Chasing a conspiracy that stretched into other countries meant stepping
Speaker 1: into trickier and sometimes far riskier territory. The FBI could
Speaker 1: no longer rely on its reach alone. Every move also
Speaker 1: depended on allies abroad, on timing that had to be flawless,
Speaker 1: and on the hope that no one slipped away before
Speaker 1: the net was cast. The margin for error had never
Speaker 1: been thinner. In early June two thousand and seven, after
Speaker 1: months of surveillance, the FBI and its partners decided to act.
Speaker 8: We didn't plan on taking it down when it did
Speaker 8: go down, but we got word that Kadeer was flying
Speaker 8: to Venezuela or possibly to Iran via Venezuela. We didn't
Speaker 8: know if he was going there to talk about the plot.
Speaker 8: Information you had for the plot, so we decided to
Speaker 8: take it.
Speaker 1: To hunt that point, it was now a race against
Speaker 1: the cock Russell.
Speaker 8: The FRIUS was in the United States. He was in
Speaker 8: Brooklyn at the time with Anna, so we had a
Speaker 8: lot of control over that, which was good.
Speaker 1: Arrests in New York could be handled closely, but overseas
Speaker 1: was a much tougher task. If just one suspect slipped away,
Speaker 1: the entire plot could escape their grasp. That danger became
Speaker 1: very real when investigators learned where abdulah Nor was headed next.
Speaker 5: Nor was booking travel through Venezuela onto Iran to go
Speaker 5: look for some support for this plot, and we knew
Speaker 5: that if he got into those countries, we might not
Speaker 5: be able to get him back. That's when the case
Speaker 5: agents started coordinating, trying to figure out how they could
Speaker 5: have the local police help us in Guyana and Trinidad
Speaker 5: and Tobago to arrest the folks that were there, and
Speaker 5: they were preparing for extradition of those folks and trying
Speaker 5: to make sure that they could coordinate and had all
Speaker 5: of the plotters in pocket at once and could effectuate
Speaker 5: all of these arrests as close to simultaneously as they could.
Speaker 1: In Brooklyn, agents staged a takedown. It was also meant
Speaker 1: to disguise and NAS's true identity in the ongoing priority
Speaker 1: to keep him safe.
Speaker 5: The night of the arrest, we arrested Defriedis and on
Speaker 5: Us in a diner and we made sure that they
Speaker 5: were booked together so it looked like, you know, we
Speaker 5: were arresting in Nas as a plot or two.
Speaker 1: The illusion didn't last long.
Speaker 5: But very quickly it came out that he was the source.
Speaker 1: At that point, keeping a Nas and his family away
Speaker 1: from harm meant moving quickly.
Speaker 5: And we had taken action that night, after the raiment
Speaker 5: and booking of Defriedis were over, we went to the
Speaker 5: apartment where he had been living and moved out everything
Speaker 5: of his apartment.
Speaker 1: The priority was to get them out before anyone connected
Speaker 1: to the plot could find them, and that urgency only
Speaker 1: grew when a NASA's true identity became public.
Speaker 5: And when that came out in the paper a couple
Speaker 5: of days later, with his full background in history, we
Speaker 5: realized we had to do even more to make sure
Speaker 5: that he and his family were safe, above and beyond
Speaker 5: just relocating them out of the New York City area.
Speaker 1: While New York was secured, partners overseas moved in on
Speaker 1: the rest of the South.
Speaker 8: It was pretty quick. We had a very good relationship
Speaker 8: with the counterparts in those countries and we provide the
Speaker 8: evidence in the warrants to the other countries, but they
Speaker 8: have to affect the arrests and then we go through
Speaker 8: the extradition process to get them back into Nine States.
Speaker 8: Abdulkadir was in Trinidad getting on a plane when he
Speaker 8: was arrested Abdulnor was in Trinidad. He was on the
Speaker 8: run for a couple of days and they found him.
Speaker 8: Abraham Comma was in Trinidad.
Speaker 1: Also, what began as whispered conversations about an attack ended
Speaker 1: in a coordinated sweep across two countries. All four men
Speaker 1: were taken into custody within the span of a single week.
Speaker 11: Today's arrests remind us that we're at war. The reality is,
Speaker 11: over the last couple of weeks we've had two now
Speaker 11: major arrests of people who were organizing to attack in
Speaker 11: America and to attack Americans. It should remind us that
Speaker 11: the terrorists are at war with us, both overseas and
Speaker 11: here in the United States. And sometimes I know this
Speaker 11: is a different kind of war, so it's sometimes hard
Speaker 11: to focus on it. But the reality is that today's
Speaker 11: arrests remind me of the fact that we have to
Speaker 11: remain on offense against terrorists.
Speaker 1: The plot was dismantled, the arrests had been made, but
Speaker 1: for Anas, the end of the case was and treat them.
Speaker 5: The day of the arrest, we arrived after dark with
Speaker 5: a bunch of agents and a box truck and loaded
Speaker 5: everything from their lives into this box truck to take
Speaker 5: them somewhere where they wouldn't be bumping into folks on
Speaker 5: the street. We had to instruct our source and his family.
Speaker 5: They had to get rid of their cell phones, they
Speaker 5: couldn't be using their Internet accounts. Basically anything that could
Speaker 5: be used to identify them trace them had to go.
Speaker 5: So it was a complete upheaval of their lives, and
Speaker 5: I don't think that anybody understands exactly that sacrifice that
Speaker 5: they have to make.
Speaker 1: It was the start of a life cloaked in secrecy.
Speaker 5: We couldn't guarantee them that at some later point that
Speaker 5: it would be safe for them to walk back into
Speaker 5: their old lives, and in fact, to this day, I
Speaker 5: know that there is upheaval in the sources life as
Speaker 5: a result of this, that his life has been forever changed,
Speaker 5: and he's not been able to maintain contacts with all
Speaker 5: of his family and not be there through key events
Speaker 5: in his relatives' lives.
Speaker 1: But even in hiding, and NASA's cooperation remained essential.
Speaker 5: We had to organize for a couple of years meetings
Speaker 5: at various locations throughout the United States so that he
Speaker 5: could assist in trial preparation and then, of course, a
Speaker 5: full time security detail for him when he was in
Speaker 5: New York waiting to testify.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Defratus' fury remained with him behind bars.
Speaker 5: We found out he was trying to recruit some of
Speaker 5: his fellow prisoners to murder the source and the prosecutor.
Speaker 5: So he was definitely looking to harm the source. And
Speaker 5: then there were also wanted posters that were put up
Speaker 5: on the streets of Brooklyn around the area that he
Speaker 5: had been working that had his name, his face wan
Speaker 5: a dead or alive for being a snitch. That made
Speaker 5: it a very, very real threat. He had gone into
Speaker 5: this knowing that that was the outcome, so he handled
Speaker 5: it as well as you could expect somebody who has
Speaker 5: a total compleet upheaval in their life.
Speaker 1: While the plot had been thwarted, the court battle was
Speaker 1: only beginning. The first Hurtle wasn't in court, but overseas extradition.
Speaker 1: It took some time, but eventually all defendants were returned
Speaker 1: to the US. Once all four were in Brooklyn, the
Speaker 1: case moved forward. The defendants faced a series of federal charges,
Speaker 1: all tied to the same core allegation, a plan to
Speaker 1: blow up JFK airport and its fuel system. Prosecutors can
Speaker 1: continued to partner with law enforcement right through the trial.
Speaker 8: It was very intense, it was very exciting. The pressure
Speaker 8: was there to make sure that everything was aligned and
Speaker 8: done correctly. We had a ton of evidence, a ton
Speaker 8: of recordings that we had to transcribe, and.
Speaker 1: That was have you left abdel nor pled guilty? The
Speaker 1: three remaining defendants went to court.
Speaker 9: It went to two trials, first of mister Kadeer and
Speaker 9: mister de Fritis, So that's what happened to the four defendants.
Speaker 9: There was also a fifth defendant who testify, who came
Speaker 9: to the United States. He was one of the early
Speaker 9: co conspirators, came to the United States, pleaded guilty to
Speaker 9: terrorism crimes and testified against the others.
Speaker 2: So ultimately the.
Speaker 9: Trial included both the source testifying and this other cooperating.
Speaker 1: Witness from the prosecutions side of the table. The evidence
Speaker 1: was overwhelming, but would the jury see it that way?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 10: The government be able to convince a jury that these
Speaker 10: men were a real th threat to the nation's security
Speaker 10: when even the government itself acknowledges that they did not
Speaker 10: have the means actually to carry out the attack.
Speaker 1: The defense only needed to plant doubt, and they searched
Speaker 1: for a way to do it.
Speaker 9: The defense became a bit of a subject of debate
Speaker 9: at the trials. I would call the defense entrapment light.
Speaker 9: They was sort of all the trappings of entrapment, but
Speaker 9: without actually claiming entrapment. So it was sort of a
Speaker 9: combination of this wasn't real. These were just people spouting off,
Speaker 9: so there was no real intent here. They weren't really
Speaker 9: going to follow through with it.
Speaker 10: Here's the question. Was the US government right to take
Speaker 10: this bomb plot seriously or were these suspected terrorists simply
Speaker 10: amateur wannabes who could never have pulled off a real attack.
Speaker 1: But in the end, the most powerful evidence wasn't documents
Speaker 1: or testimony, It was the defendants themselves.
Speaker 8: I think the record definitely were the strongest. Just the
Speaker 8: jury hearing those recordings and hearing the voices of the
Speaker 8: people sitting there on trial and hearing them talk about
Speaker 8: this plot and what they wanted to do was definitely
Speaker 8: the most damning part of it.
Speaker 1: The recordings also cut off the defense's line of attack,
Speaker 1: arguing that the government had manufactured the crime.
Speaker 9: So in this case, what the jury and the judge
Speaker 9: agreed with was this was all Russell Defriedez's idea. He
Speaker 9: was the one who came up with the target. He
Speaker 9: was the one who came up with the method. He
Speaker 9: was the one who decided that they should videotape the
Speaker 9: place where he used to work. He was the one
Speaker 9: who introduced the source to people in some foreign country.
Speaker 9: The source had never been to before in Guyana and Trinidad.
Speaker 1: To make their case, two of the defendants did something
Speaker 1: rare in terrorism trials.
Speaker 9: And ultimately they did take the stand to try to
Speaker 9: explain away the things they were saying on the recordings,
Speaker 9: and so that made for I think a rather made
Speaker 9: for media moment of to terrorism defendants in separate trials
Speaker 9: testifying on their behalf and giving me the opportunity to
Speaker 9: cross examine them.
Speaker 1: The GAMP had backfired documents and recordings undercut their stories,
Speaker 1: and the jury wasn't convinced.
Speaker 8: They were found guilty on all charges well freedom.
Speaker 1: By early twenty twelve, the trials were over. Russell Defriedis
Speaker 1: was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Abdul Kadir
Speaker 1: and Kareem Abraham were convicted and also given life sentences.
Speaker 1: Abdul Nor received fifteen years. The case closed the book
Speaker 1: on a plot that, if successful, could have caused immense devastation.
Speaker 1: Even after the sentences were handed down, the story didn't
Speaker 1: simply end. The government still had one more obligation to
Speaker 1: protect Annas, the man who had risked everything to expose
Speaker 1: the plot.
Speaker 8: We definite concerned for his safety. There were some serious
Speaker 8: individuals in Guyana that obviously we're not happy that he
Speaker 8: was an informant. We did put him in the witness
Speaker 8: protection program.
Speaker 1: The trial changed his life forever for a nas survival
Speaker 1: meant vanishing. Investigators still remember what they accomplished together at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 8: There are essentially fifty different agencies in the JTTF, and
Speaker 8: I would say almost every single one of them were
Speaker 8: working together. It really was a tremendous group effort and
Speaker 8: kind of just a highlight of why there is a
Speaker 8: JTTF and the success that the collaboration brings. I think
Speaker 8: bringing everybody onto one roof and one office and working
Speaker 8: together as one kind of builds this camaraderie and it
Speaker 8: helps to this day making the JTTF the success.
Speaker 1: This case is also an example of this system working
Speaker 1: in unison across borders and jurisdictions.
Speaker 5: I think this is a case where the JTTF worked
Speaker 5: exactly as it was designed to. We got information and
Speaker 5: were able to develop that and act on what we knew.
Speaker 5: We were able to work with partners in foreign countries.
Speaker 5: We used pretty much every tool in the tool bag
Speaker 5: and were able to come up with a solid case
Speaker 5: for the US attorneys to take to court. So it
Speaker 5: was very much a textbook case on how a case
Speaker 5: investigation with an international nexus should work.
Speaker 1: From Marshall, the case represents why his work is important,
Speaker 1: and you have.
Speaker 9: To step back at the end, or at least at
Speaker 9: key moments in the process, and then at the end
Speaker 9: to take stock. There were times, though, when you were
Speaker 9: able to step back and say, we've done something here,
Speaker 9: We've done something that matters, that really has an impact
Speaker 9: protecting lives, shaping the future of these kinds of investigations
Speaker 9: and prosecutions.
Speaker 1: Looking back, this case is a golden example of what
Speaker 1: can be achieved with a preemptive approach to terrorism and
Speaker 1: teamwork at its best.
Speaker 9: JTTF generally they work in a very difficult environment where
Speaker 9: if the dots aren't connected, or if the mistakes are made,
Speaker 9: there can be catastrophic consequences, but also it's kind of
Speaker 9: the best of law enforcement, where folks are committed to
Speaker 9: the mission, they're working together hand in hand, and they're
Speaker 9: working also hand in hand with the prosecutorial folks and
Speaker 9: with their intelligence community partners, and it's like exactly what
Speaker 9: you want out of government.
Speaker 1: This would be the start of a new era for
Speaker 1: the JTTF. The organization would only improve from here, and
Speaker 1: what followed was even more successes. In the coming decade,
Speaker 1: the JTTF would thwart hundreds of new threats, some involving
Speaker 1: organizations and others single individuals acting alone.
Speaker 2: Next time on law and order criminal Justice System.
Speaker 6: At BI agents say that this investigation took them into
Speaker 6: a hidden culture of both hate and violence.
Speaker 9: He had a framed picture of Timothy mcveay in his room.
Speaker 9: He idolized McVay and he wanted to do something similar.
Speaker 1: He went off on the Somalies. He was calling them names,
Speaker 1: and he said he wanted to shoot some of them.
Speaker 9: He was working on constructing explosive devices.
Speaker 6: An anti government, anti Muslim, anti immigrant group planned to
Speaker 6: vombit apartment complex in Garden City in southwest Kansas.
Speaker 2: Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Speaker 2: Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 2: The show was written by Cooper Mall, Executive produced by
Speaker 2: Dick Wolf, Elliot Wolf and Stephen Michael at Wolf Entertainment
Speaker 2: on behalf of iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers Trevor Young and
Speaker 2: Matt Frederick, with supervising producer Chandler Mays and producer Jesse Funk.
Speaker 2: This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazzi. Our
Speaker 2: researchers are Luke Stantz and Carolyn Tolmidge. Editing and sound
Speaker 2: designed by Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Original music by
Speaker 2: John O'Hara, Original theme by Mike Post with additional music
Speaker 2: by Steve Moore and additional voice over by me Steve Zernkelton.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Fox five in New York for providing
Speaker 2: archival material for the show. For more podcasts from iHeart
Speaker 2: in Wolf Entertainment, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.