The following Department of Justice press release, dated Feb. 27, 2025, may be found
here
Former Navy Sailor Pleads Guilty to Plotting to Attack Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago
A former Navy sailor has pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to plotting to attack—while on active duty—Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Illinois, purportedly on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, of North Chicago, Illinois, pleaded guilty to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities, with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the United States. The guilty plea was entered on Nov. 5, 2024, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and ordered unsealed today.
NCIS provided critical investigative resources while working with the FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force. NCIS’s Office of Special Projects deployed surveillance teams and worked tirelessly with FBI partners supporting undercover operations, interviews, as well as conducted numerous searches and obtained hundreds of gigabytes of computer data as part of the investigation.
In the in the summer of 2021, Pang communicated with an individual in Colombia about potentially assisting with a plan involving Iranian actors to conduct an attack against the United States to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the U.S. military in 2020. The Quds Force is a branch of the IRGC that conducts unconventional warfare and intelligence activities outside of Iran.
On three occasions in the fall of 2022, Pang personally met with undercover agents posing as associates of Quds Force operatives looking to attack United States targets. The first meeting took place outside of the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, and the two other meetings were held at a train station in Lake Bluff, Illinois. During the meetings in Lake Bluff, as the plot coalesced into an attack on the Naval Station, Pang displayed photos and videos on his phone of multiple locations inside the Naval Station. He also provided two U.S. military uniforms – for operatives to wear inside the base during the attack – and a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.
NCIS stands with law enforcement, intelligence community, and Justice Department partners to prevent terrorist attacks, protect critical technologies and warfighter capabilities and reduce the impact of criminal activities to Department of Navy forces—ashore, afloat and in cyberspace. This case is a shining example of outstanding proactive investigative work by the FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, NCIS Office of Special Projects, NCIS Central Field Office, Justice Department’s National Security Division, and the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
Pang is currently detained without bond and is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.