Two Montclair teens arrested for alleged terror plot planned to become ISIS fighters: Investigators

MONTCLAIR, New Jersey (WABC) -- The NYPD's intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau quietly led the investigation and arrest of two teenagers from New Jersey, with the help of the FBI, for an alleged terrorist plot.

Now police are looking into how the two friends from Montclair, New Jersey, became self-radicalized.

Investigators say they planned to travel abroad to become ISIS fighters.

Newly filed federal documents paint a disturbing picture of what police say the teenagers have been up to over the past few months.

The two 19-year-old former high school athletes are charged with participating in an ISIS-inspired terror ring.

Tomas Kaan Jimenez-Guzel and Milo Sedarat are both from upper-middle-class families who grew up on tree-lined streets in Montclair.

"We're constantly challenged in our assumptions of who is or who isn't a potential ISIS supporter," Rebecca Weiner with the NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism said.

NYPD's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau are looking into encrypted messaging apps to figure out how the young men became self-radicalized.

"We've started to see a steady increase in would-be foreign fighters going to two places, Syria, and Africa," Weiner said.

That's what the deputy commissioner says Jimenez-Guzel was in the process of doing.

There's a photo of the college freshman standing with a knife in front of an ISIS flag.

The federal complaint alleges he was on his way to "travel to the Middle East, ultimately Syria, for the purpose of joining ISIS and engaging in violent Jihad on ISIS's behalf."

The other defendant, Sedarat, was shown in pictures holding a sword and a knife.

Prosecutors said he texted, "I'm actually gonna go strap a bomb to my chest and go blow up the (company) headquarters."

Another text read, "line up 500 jews and execute them in front of their wives and family."

"Support for an incredibly lethal and incredibly enduring foreign terrorist organization that has wreaked a lot of bloodshed around the world but importantly in the United States," Weiner said.

Police said the two teens were connected to the same network of people in the terrorist plot in Detroit over Halloween weekend.

Three men were arrested there, after prosecutors claimed they had accumulated an arsenal of weapons and ammunition to carry out an attack.

After their arrests, local police say Jimenez-Guzel got worried and moved up his plans to leave the country.

He was arrested at Newark Airport.

Rebecca says threats like this have persisted over the past 15 years, quieting down during the pandemic, but are on the rise once again.

"This is what the NYPD is meant to do. We are here to keep the public safe, we work collectively to do so and it's an example of a success story of a bad thing that couldn't happen because of good collaboration and partnership," Weiner said.

Both teenagers are facing multiple federal charges.

In addition to the arrests locally and the three in Detroit, another person was also arrested in Seattle.

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