Brooklyn man funneled $70K to ISIS, practiced at shooting range: feds

John Annese, New York Daily News on Feb 26, 2025

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A Tajik citizen living in Brooklyn conspired to funnel $70,000 into the hands of ISIS and practiced shooting assault rifles, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn allege.

Mansuri Manuchekhri sent money through an intermediary to ISIS-connected people in Turkey and Syria between December 2021 and April 2023, and investigators believe that cash went to the group’s fighters and their widows, the feds allege in court documents released Wednesday.

Some of that cash went to a man involved in a January 2024 attack on a church in Istanbul, the feds allege.

Manuchekhri was arrested Wednesday on several federal charges, including conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, possessing firearms while unlawfully in the United States and immigration fraud.

The 33-year-old suspect entered into a sham marriage with a U.S. citizen in 2017 after his visa expired in 2016, but he never provided the supporting documents he needed to make his petition for citizenship legit, the feds allege.

But his status didn’t stop him from repeatedly visiting a gun range in New Jersey, where he posed for a picture with a rifle in each arm, according to the feds.

He also sent a video of himself firing an assault rifle at the range to someone affiliated with ISIS in Turkey, boasting in February 2022, “Thank God, I am ready, brother,” the feds allege.

One of Manuchekhri’s close family members called a state terrorism tip line in August 2024, worried that he may commit acts of violence, according to a criminal complaint.

That same relative then told an FBI agent Manuchekhri committed acts of domestic violence against several people in the past, and was becoming increasingly radicalized. Manuchekhri also threatened to kill that relative several times, most recently in 2023, the complaint alleges.

He also praised Saifullo Saipov, who killed eight people and injured 18 more in a terrorist truck attack along the Hudson River Park bike path in 2017, saying that he was “in heaven now,” the relative told the FBI agent.

Saipov is serving eight consecutive life sentences for the attack.

Manuchekhri was arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday and ordered held without bail. He faces up to 45 years behind bars if convicted at trial.

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