Brooklyn Man Sent $70k To Fund ISIS, Practiced With Firearms: Feds

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn man has been arrested and charged for conspiring to support the Islamic State and sending thousands of dollars to ISIS followers in Turkey and Syria, prosecutors announced.

Mansuri Manuchekhri, 33, has also been charged with possessing a firearm while unlawfully in the United States and immigration fraud, prosecutors said.

Manuchekhri is accused of sending $70,000 in payments to ISIS supporters in Turkey and Syria. Turkish authorities later arrested a recipient for their alleged involvement in a 2024 attack on a church in Istanbul, for which the ISIS-K organization claimed responsibility, according to a criminal complaint.

“Protecting the homeland and prosecuting evildoers who assist terrorist organizations by funding their violent and hateful agenda, here and abroad, will always be a priority of this Office,” John Durham, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

Manuchekhri possessed and used firearms and made frequent visits to shooting ranges, prosecutors said.

In Feb. 2022, Manuchekhri recorded himself firing an assault rifle at a shooting range in New Jersey and sent the video to one of the ISIS-affiliated individuals in Turkey with the message, “Praise God, I am ready, brother.”

According to prosecutors, Manuchekhri entered the United States in June 2016 on a tourist visa from Tajikistan and remained in the country after his visa expired in Dec. 2016.

If convicted, Manuchekhri faces up to 45 years in prison.