A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged with a plot to “reboot” the U.S. government by planting a bomb on the New York Stock Exchange this week and detonating it with a remote-controlled device, the FBI said.
Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, 30, of Coral Springs, Florida, was charged with attempting to use an explosive to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce.
The FBI began investigating Yener in February based on a tip that he was storing “bomb-making schematics” in a storage facility. According to the FBI, they found bomb-making sketches, many watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics that could be used to build explosives. According to the FBI, he had also searched online since 2017 for matters related to bomb making.
Yener also told undercover FBI agents that he wanted to detonate the bomb the week before Thanksgiving and that the Lower Manhattan Stock Exchange would be a popular target.
“The Exchange, we want to capitalize on that because it will wake people up,” he told undercover FBI agents, according to court documents.
He wanted to bomb the stock exchange to restart the U.S. government, explaining it would be “like a small atomic bomb going off,” killing everyone in the building, according to court documents.
According to court documents, he had spent the past month rewiring two-way radios so they could serve as remote triggers for an explosive device. He planned to wear a disguise when planting the explosives.
Yener made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon and will be held while he awaits trial.
The news was first reported by the website CourtWatch.
