A homeless man has been arrested and charged over a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
The 30-year-old man from Florida, Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempting to use an explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce, having unveiled some of his plans to undercover agents, according to the FBI.
They began investigating Yener in February based on a tip that he was holding “bomb-making schematics” in a storage unit.
Bomb-making sketches, many watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics that could be used for building explosive devices were found, the FBI said.
It also said he told undercover FBI agents that he wanted to detonate the bomb the week before Thanksgiving and that the stock exchange in lower Manhattan would be a popular site to target, and that doing so “will wake people up”.
An agent also allegedly recorded him saying: “I feel like Bin Laden.”
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He described how he hoped the bomb would “reboot” the US government, explaining that it would be “like a small nuke went off,” killing everyone inside the building, according to court documents.
The documents also claim he had rewired two-way radios so that they could work as remote triggers for an explosive device and planned to wear a disguise when planting the explosives.
Yener, who had also searched online for things related to bomb-making since 2017, was sacked from his job at a restaurant in Florida last year after his former supervisor said he threatened to “go Parkland shooter in this place”, the FBI added.
He had his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon and will be detained while he awaits a trial.