(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Newly unsealed court records reveal that a confidential informant made $665,638.63 over roughly the last eight years working for the FBI—with one of his recent assignments being to pose as an Iraqi terrorist.
“[Confidential Human Source 1] has been working with the FBI since approximately 2014. CHS1 has no prior arrests/convictions or negative reporting. CHS1 is working with the FBI based on patriotism as well as monetary benefits,” the FBI disclosed in an Oct. 2022 criminal complaint that was just unsealed last Thursday.
“CHS1 has done extensive work for the FBI beyond this case, and the CHS1’s total compensation for work performed and the reimbursement of expenses over the past approximately 8 years is in excess of $665,638.63.”
🚨Newly unsealed court records show that a confidential informant made $665,638.63 over roughly the last eight years working for the FBI—with one of his recent assignments being to pose as an Iraqi terrorist.
STORY BELOW!
🧵 pic.twitter.com/yJYeDuSbV8— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) March 3, 2025
Last Thursday’s bombshell disclosure came in the case of former Navy sailor Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, a naturalized citizen from China who was residing in North Chicago. Pang pled guilty last November to conspiring to and attempting to willfully harm the national defense of the United States—and his guilty plea was just ordered unsealed last Thursday.
The details of Pang’s case are wild.
According to the Justice Department, Pang, who enlisted in the Navy in February 2022, was an associate of an unnamed individual in Colombia. Pang and the Colombian were allegedly conspiring to attack the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the Trump administration in 2020
Court records don’t explain Pang or the Colombian’s interest in avenging Soleimani, but they do say that the Colombian has links to the National Liberation Army, a Marxist-Leninist guerilla organization formed in 1964.
While their motivations are unclear, Pang and the Colombian’s conspiracy allegedly included a plot to smuggle radioactive polonium into the country, according to the FBI. The Colombian allegedly told Pang in 2022 that the polonium would “detonate” in a major U.S. city within a year—something that obviously never happened.
The FBI purportedly discovered the above-mentioned conspiracy when agent executed a search warrant on Pang’s online activity in April 2022, two months after he enlisted in the Navy. Court records don’t indicate why the FBI sought the warrant in the first place.
After executing the search on Pang, an FBI undercover employee posing as an Iraqi Shia militant group commander contacted the Colombian in July 2022. The unnamed Colombia allegedly agreed to help the covert FBI employee and his purported associates with their operation to conduct the attack in the U.S. Pang was looped in on the plot, and he agreed to help, too, according to the FBI.
That’s when the FBI informant came into the picture. According to court records, the FBI informant met in person with Pang at least three times, posing as an operative of the Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary group, Kata’ib Hizballah. Their first meeting was in September 2022.
Pang and continued to talk to the phony Iraqi operative over the next few weeks. The criminal complaint against Pang shows that the FBI informant was pushing him into a plot to attack military bases—but that Pang was reluctant.
One purported conversation went as follows:
CHS1: So, you mentioned some military places. Is it closer from here?
PANG: Not that close.
CHS1: No?
PANG: Two hours.
CHS1: [Unintelligible]
PANG: Those places, impossible.
CHS1: Really?
PANG: Because the military places have this heavily…heavily guarded…
CHS1: Yeah.
PANG: …heavily guarded. And you have only two people coming? You can’t …won’t be able to get through a gate.
CHS1: Yeah. You’re right.
PANG: So…
CHS1: Do you think you can do some search of these places just in case?
PANG: I’ll look it up.
Eventually, Pang did send surveillance footage of a Navy base, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly showed the FBI informant footage of inside the base during an in-person meeting in October 2022.
“PANG initiated the meeting with CHS1 to discuss more details about the plot to attack the Naval Station Great Lakes and was also aware of the risks of sending photos of the inside of the military base,” the DOJ’s October 2022 criminal complaint stated. “Although aware of these risks, according to CHS1 and the recording, PANG showed photos of what appeared to be areas inside of the U.S. Navy base to CHS1 during their in-person meeting.”
After that Oct. 15, 2022, meeting, the FBI informant paid Pang $3,000 in cash. The informant then asked about acquiring military uniforms to get operatives onto the Navy base to facilitate an attack. Later that month, Pang provided the informant with the uniforms, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly provided the informant with a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.
The FBI obtained an arrest warrant for Pang the next day on Oct. 16, 2022. For the next two-plus years, the case remained under seal.
At one point, Pang filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the charges. The contents of that motion are still unavailable to the public, as are the vast majority of documents from the case.
Pang is set to be sentenced on May 27. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The DOJ’s case is the latest allegation that Iran conspired to attack the U.S. Last year, the DOJ announced two cases involving a purported plot to assassinate Donald Trump.
To date, the U.S. government has produced no hard evidence of an Iranian plot against Trump. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran was arrested last July for trying to hire an FBI informant as a “hitman,” and another Iranian told the FBI last year that his government was trying to kill Trump—but those cases appear highly dubious, and certainly didn’t pose any real threat to the President.
Additionally, in 2022 the FBI announced an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former national security advisor John Bolton—another case involving someone trying to hire an FBI informant as a hitman.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
