Brentwood woman pleads guilty to providing funds to Islamic State

A Brentwood woman on Monday pleaded guilty to providing financial support to Islamic State — the militant group that has launched terror attacks worldwide — by wiring $150,000 last year to people and shell entities that officials said were fronts for the group in Pakistan, China and Turkey, and trying to sign up with them in Syria.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, pleaded guilty to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization before U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip. The defendant, who was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced on March 29, said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard P. Donoghue.

“With today’s guilty plea, Shahnaz, a resident of our district, admitted to engaging in a complex scheme using cryptocurrencies designed to put thousands of dollars into the coffers of ISIS, a foreign terrorist organization dedicated to murder and destruction,” Donoghue said in a prepared statement. “Counterterrorism is the highest priority of the Department of Justice and our law enforcement partners, and together we will continue to hold accountable those who abet terrorists seeking to harm the United States and its allies.”

Shahnaz’s attorney, Steve Zissou of Bayside, could not be reached for comment. But Zissou was quoted by National Public Radio in December 2017 as saying the former lab technician for a Manhattan hospital had volunteered to help Syrian refugees who left the war-torn country by the millions, spilling into neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey as well as Europe.

"As a health care professional, in 2016, Ms. Shahnaz was a volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society assisting other health care providers in delivering lifesaving medical care to Syrian refugees," NPR quoted Zissou as saying. "She witnessed the suffering of the refugees firsthand. Her humanitarian efforts then and since were motivated by her commitment to helping alleviate the plight of the people in the Middle East."

But prosecutors said Shahnaz on Monday admitted to defrauding several banks and then laundering the money and sending it to operatives of Islamic State, which has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and United Nations. She also had accessed "ISIS propaganda online, including violent jihad-related websites and message boards, and social media and messaging pages of known ISIS recruiters, facilitators and financiers," prosecutors said.

The financial scheme took place from March 2017 to July 31, of 2017, the date she intended to leave for Syria. Authorities said she took out a loan for $22,500 and then used fraudulently obtained credit cards to buy approximately $62,000 in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online. She then wired over $150,000 to people and shell entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey.

The entities were all fronts for ISIS, prosecutors said.

A U.S. citizen, Shahnaz was intercepted at Kennedy Airport by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force as she tried to leave the country to join ISIS in Syria, where Islamic State and other mainly-Sunni Muslim militant organizations have sided with rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad in a civil war that has claimed more than 500,000 lives since it began in March 2011.

The conflict has drawn in thousands of foreign fighters as well as world and regional powers, including the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and Turkey.

Islamic State has also launched attacks in Iraq — at one time seizing a wide swath of territory on either side of the Iraq-Syria border — and other parts of the Middle East and Europe. It considers among its enemies Western countries and Shia Muslims, and has engaged in tactics widely condemned as barbaric by human rights organizations, including torture, beheadings, rape, kidnapping, sexual slavery and burning people alive.

“In the interest of empowering and enriching a terrorist organization whose aim is to harm America, Zoobia Shahnaz turned her back on her country and her fellow citizens,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney. “This conviction sends a message to anyone who seeks to manipulate our financial systems to provide support to our adversaries: you too will be discovered, investigated, and brought to justice.”