New particulars have emerged within the case of two males who allegedly impersonated Homeland Safety officers, duping their D.C. neighbors — together with a Secret Service agent who was assigned to guard first woman Jill Biden.
The lads, Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, had been arrested earlier this week. Their motivations stay unclear; prosecutors arguing for his or her pretrial detention instructed the chance that they'd ties to overseas governments.
Neither man is employed by the USA authorities in any capability, courtroom paperwork say. One, Taherzadeh, is barred from possessing firearms as a result of a previous home violence conviction; he pleaded responsible to making an attempt to strangle his spouse almost a decade in the past.
But the pair had been seemingly often known as Homeland Safety officers to neighbors of their Washington, D.C., condo constructing, the place they rented a number of items and the place many residents are affiliated with federal regulation enforcement and the army.
Courtroom paperwork filed earlier within the week say that Taherzadeh was “very outspoken about his job” as a supposed Homeland Safety officer, regardless of his declare to be a part of a covert job power.
The lads allegedly recruited one particular person to “serve on their job power,” telling the person he would should be shot with an Airsoft rifle in order that Taherzadeh might consider his response and ache tolerance. The person instructed regulation enforcement Ali was additionally current whereas he allowed himself to be shot.
One neighbor, a Secret Service agent assigned to guard the primary woman, mentioned Taherzadeh had “made it clear that he's the ‘go-to man’ if a resident wanted something within the constructing.” Taherzadeh purchased that agent a $2,000 assault rifle, based on prosecutors.
He and Ali are accused of lavishing items on their neighbors, allegedly offering two Secret Service brokers with free flats for round one yr, permitting the spouse of a Secret Service agent to make use of what was supposedly an official authorities car, and giving out iPhones and different electronics.
The Secret Service positioned 4 brokers on administrative go away Monday.
Authorities discovered that Taherzadeh and Ali had a Sig Sauer 229 and a Glock 19 ― firearms usually issued by federal regulation enforcement ― together with a number of firearm safes and firearm elements. They found surveillance gear, 30 laborious drives and a machine to create and program private identification verification playing cards, together with some clean playing cards with embedded chips.
The 2 males had been “not merely taking part in dress-up,” prosecutors mentioned in courtroom paperwork filed Friday.
Additionally in Taherzadeh’s possession was “a rifle scope, tactical gear and storage gear, clothes and patches with police insignias, handheld radios, a high-end drone, a fuel masks, handcuffs, zip ties, breaching gear, a cleansing equipment for firearms, an ultraviolet flashlight, an RF-GS k18 which is used to find hidden cameras, microphones and RF transmitters (e.g. car trackers), laptop server with two modules, an encrypted transportable laborious drive, antennas, and a firearms holster mounted and hidden below a desk.”
Taherzadeh instructed regulation enforcement that Ali funded most of their operations, however that he didn't know the place the cash got here from, courtroom paperwork say. Taherzadeh’s non-public safety firm, known as “U.S. Particular Police LLC,” allegedly used enterprise playing cards allegedly formatted “very equally” to Secret Service enterprise playing cards.
In accordance with prosecutors, an expired passport Ali nonetheless had in his possession indicated he’d visited Iran, Pakistan and Egypt, and he allegedly claimed he had ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service ― one thing that has not been corroborated.
Taherzadeh and Ali’s alleged actions solely got here to mild due to an apparently unrelated assault on a United States Postal Service employee of their condo constructing. A few of their neighbors instructed investigators that the 2 labored for Homeland Safety, sparking an investigation that the FBI ultimately took over.
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