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Credit to Author: Garrett M. Graff| Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:50:41 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Garrett M. Graff<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two weeks after<\/span> FBI agents surged through a luxury apartment building in Washington, DC, and arrested two men who allegedly spent years pretending to be Homeland Security officers, the case continues to baffle even some of the nation\u2019s most experienced counterintelligence experts. Did US investigators stumble onto an Iranian assassination plot or a case of two bozos whose alleged cosplay went horribly wrong?<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the FBI arrested 36-year-old Arian Taherzadeh and 40-year-old Haider Ali for allegedly impersonating officers from the part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that handles national security and customs investigation, known as Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The alleged scheme, which lasted more than two years, was elaborate and would have been expensive to pull off.<\/p>\n According to the FBI\u2019s 17-page arrest affidavit<\/a>, Taherzadeh and Ali used their pretend HSI affiliations to ingratiate themselves with real federal agents, including uniformed officers from the US Secret Service and special agents from its presidential protective details, as well as other personnel from agencies like the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.<\/p>\n Attorneys for Ali and Taherzadeh have characterized<\/a> the case against their clients as \u201cpreposterous\u201d and pushing \u201cthe wild conspiracy theories.\u201d Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the case, Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey, last week refused the Justice Department\u2019s request to keep the two suspects in jail and downplayed the events<\/a>, saying there was no evidence that classified information was compromised. Harvey added that \u201cthere is no evidence of foreign ties in this case.\u201d But counterintelligence experts say there\u2019s plenty of reason to suspect that the two men weren\u2019t operating on their own\u2014even as the defendants\u2019 alleged behavior was so brazen and bizarre that it seems hard to imagine they were the vanguard of a sophisticated plot.<\/p>\n Most of all, though, the case underscores vulnerabilities to foreign influence in the shadowy and sprawling law enforcement community<\/a> in Washington, DC, where 17 national intelligence agencies; dozens of private, local, state, and federal police departments; and hundreds of military contractor firms all mix amid an environment that prizes personal ambition and professional networking.<\/p>\n According to court<\/span> filings, Taherzadeh and Ali\u2019s alleged scheme was uncovered in March when a US postal inspector, investigating an alleged nearby assault on a mail carrier, interviewed the two men who identified themselves as part of a made-up DHS unit they called the US Special Police Investigation Unit. After the postal inspector alerted DHS, the FBI took up the case. But their investigation, according to prosecutors, was still unfolding when the Secret Service, investigating its own personnel\u2019s alleged involvement with the two men, blundered by contacting Taherzadeh, tipping him off. This led the FBI to quickly arrest the men.<\/p>\n As new details have emerged, the case has only grown stranger. The pair had allegedly all but taken control of the luxury apartment building where they apparently lived, known as Crossing DC. Investigators claim the two men had befriended the building\u2019s security personnel, knew the master access codes for the building\u2019s entries and elevators, flashed their badges<\/a> to other residents, and amassed lists of their fellow occupants, some of whom were federal law enforcement agents.<\/p>\n Investigators say Taherzadeh and Ali had even been handing out \u201cfree\u201d apartments to real federal agents; Taherzadeh allegedly told one uniformed Secret Service officer that he could live rent-free in a three-bedroom apartment in the building\u2014a rent valued at $48,000 per year in court documents\u2014because they had \u201cextra rooms\u201d as part of one of their operations. Another witness, who worked with DHS\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations, reported seeing in Taherzadeh\u2019s apartment \u201ca significant amount of law enforcement paraphernalia, including SWAT vests, a large safe, computers, a high-powered telescope, and internal surveillance cameras.\u201d Others claimed that Taherzadeh had numerous weapons and regularly carried a Glock 19 pistol and that he gifted federal officers all manner of items, including a drone and a TV. At one point, he allegedly offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who worked on Jill Biden\u2019s protective detail.<\/p>\n At another point, the men allegedly tried to recruit a third individual to join their \u201cDHS task force.\u201d Prosecutors claim they shot the recruit with an Airsoft rifle to \u201cevaluate their pain tolerance.\u201d They also allegedly assigned the individual to conduct research on someone who worked with the Department of Defense and intelligence community.<\/p>\n The FBI investigation was barely two weeks old when the Secret Service accidentally tipped off the suspects and spurred their quick arrests. According to court records, searches of the suspects\u2019 apartments and vehicles yielded firearms, law enforcement training manuals, computers, and boxes of police paraphernalia, from patches to tactical vests, along with documents pointing to false names and other fake identities.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the breakneck pace of the investigation, there are many facts that we still do not know,\u201d the DC US Attorney\u2019s Office argued in court, \u201cbut the facts that we do know about the Defendants\u2014that they lied about their identities for years, stored a cache of weapons and surveillance equipment in their apartments, compromised law enforcement agents in sensitive positions, and tried to cover up their crimes\u2014leave no doubt that their release poses a public safety risk.\u201d<\/p>\n The nation\u2019s capital<\/span> is no stranger to espionage cases, possible terror plots, and national security investigations. When I was editor of Washingtonian<\/em> magazine, one of our interns discovered\u2014after the FBI sealed off his apartment\u2014that he\u2019d been renting<\/a> from one of the Russian spies who inspired The Americans<\/em>. Many in Republican circles came to know Maria Butina, the gun rights activist who tried to infiltrate the National Rifle Association before being arrested, charged with being an unregistered Russian agent, imprisoned, and deported. Then there was the couple, respected long-time State Department employees, who were arrested in 2009 and charged with having spied for the Cuban government for decades<\/a>, including long after the fall of Communism. There was also the eccentric German fabulist who pretended for years to be an Iraqi general and hosted well-known dinner parties for officials in the Georgetown house he shared with his elderly wife\u2014a scheme that only unraveled after he was charged in her murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even against a backdrop of such oddities\u2014and while there are regularly<\/a> cases<\/a> across the country of wanna-be cops<\/a> impersonating officers<\/a> or agents<\/a>\u2014the scale, duration, and apparent expense of the Taherzadeh and Ali case puzzles.<\/p>\n The FBI has sole jurisdiction in the United States over counterintelligence cases, which are typically among the most complex\u2014and slowest\u2014agents investigate. Such cases, in fact, rarely end with criminal charges and a public trial. They often unfold over years and can rely on classified tools like powerful FISA warrants that are specifically designed for such work, with a focus on how agents can neutralize a foreign intelligence asset without attracting public notice. The FBI followed the Russian \u201cillegals\u201d case for the better part of a decade before finally moving to arrest the spies.<\/p>\n The investigation into Taherzadeh and Ali was in its earliest stages when the accidental tip forced agents to act\u2014haste that apparently means the government wasn\u2019t able to understand the scope of their activity.<\/p>\n \u201cThis case was clearly taken down prematurely\u2014the public probably doesn\u2019t realize how much this case wasn\u2019t ready for prime time,\u201d says a former prosecutor who focused on such cases and asked to speak anonymously because he wasn\u2019t authorized by his current employer to comment publicly. \u201cIt seems like the federal government doesn\u2019t have a theory of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n In court, the government showed evidence that Ali had visas for travel to Iran and had \u201cmade claims to witnesses that he had connections to the ISI, which is the Pakistani intelligence service.\u201d Prosecutor Joshua Rothstein also told the court<\/a> the pair \u201ccreated a potential national security risk.\u201d Both Iran and Pakistan have notably unfriendly intelligence agencies, so the news raised even more questions in DC about the men\u2019s possible motives.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just\u00a0so odd in general,\u201d says Holden Triplett, a former FBI agent who previously served as the National Security Council\u2019s director for counterintelligence. \u201cIt has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored organization. It\u2019s not clear who they\u2019re working for.\u201d<\/p>\n If they\u2019re working for anyone at all. The Iranian government does not appear to have commented on the prosecution\u2019s implication of its involvement. A spokesperson for the Pakistani embassy told The New York Times<\/em><\/a> in a statement that Ali\u2019s alleged claims of ties to Pakistani intelligence are \u201ctotally fallacious.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, though, intelligence experts are considering any possibilities. While Pakistan is purportedly a US ally, its ISI is widely seen as corrupt and infiltrated by Islamic extremists. Multiple knowledgeable former officials I spoke with speculated that the agency might have been trying\u2014albeit clumsily\u2014to reestablish and recenter its Washington ties in the wake of the US pullout of Afghanistan. \u201cIf the Pakistanis did this, it would be in line with how they operate; if it\u2019s Iran it would appear an escalation,\u201d one source said.<\/p>\n As for Iran, there is at least one example of the country attempting to carry out operations inside the US capital itself. In 2011, the Justice Department broke up a plot by the Iranian Quds Force\u2019s IRGC unit to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, apparently while he ate at a fancy Georgetown restaurant, Caf\u00e9 Milano. That bizarre plot focused on a DEA informant and a down-on-his-luck, Texas used-car salesman named Manssor Arabsiar. US intelligence doubted the plot was real until Arbabsiar met with a senior Quds Force leader and got the apparent green light for the attack.<\/p>\n That plot, which was disrupted when Arbabsiar was lured back to the US and arrested, dramatically changed the US intelligence community\u2019s assessment of Iran\u2019s capabilities and intent\u2014an assassination on US soil had long been thought to be a red line the Iranian regime wouldn\u2019t cross. And it helped drive the Obama administration\u2019s efforts to strike a nuclear deal that would stop the country from developing a workable device.<\/p>\n