Drug dealer informant blew whistle on airport bomb plot

A convicted drug dealer who agreed to pose as a potential terrorist among a shadowy group accused of plotting to blow up John F Kennedy International Airport secretly fed information to US investigators in exchange for a lighter sentence.

His surveillance trips to the New York airport with the suspects, travels abroad to meet supporters and assurances he wanted to die as a martyr in the attack on an underground jet fuel pipeline gave counter-terrorism agents insight and evidence that was otherwise unattainable.

His help once again demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the fight against terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.

“In most cases, you can’t get from A to B without an informant,” said Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-New York Police Department Joint Terrorist Task Force. “Most times when an informant tells you what is going on, speculation becomes reality.”

Four Muslim men are accused of plotting to use explosives to destroy a jet fuel pipeline that runs through residential neighbourhoods to the airport, trying to kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe.

In an indictment, one of them is quoted as saying the bombing would “cause greater destruction than in the September 11 attacks”.

According to court papers and investigators, the informant began working for the US government in 2004, after his second drug trafficking conviction in New York, and he quickly proved to be a credible source.

He was sent to meet the JFK plot’s alleged mastermind, Russell Defreitas, in 2006 and was introduced by an unidentified third party. Defreitas quickly accepted the informant as legitimate, saying he was sure they knew each other through a Brooklyn mosque.

The informant was convincing. Defreitas, according to a federal complaint, believed the informant “had been sent by Allah to be the one” to pull off the bombing.

Although the plotters put a great deal of time and travel into their plan, they never managed to obtain any explosives before authorities arrested Defreitas and foiled the JFK scheme. Experts said the plot could have resulted in damage and fires, but nothing on the scale that the defendants had envisaged.

The men accused in the JFK plot did not turn to Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan for support to target the airport.

Instead, according to a federal complaint, the informant and defendants Kareem Ibrahim and Defreitas visited a compound belonging to Jamaat al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group known for launching a bloody 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad that involved taking the prime minister and his Cabinet hostage and left 24 people dead.

Although Jamaat al Muslimeen did have contact with the men accused in the Kennedy airport plot, it is not accused of offering them any support.

The group, whose followers are largely black converts to Sunni Islam, has faded as a political force in Trinidad as its leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, fends off criminal charges of inciting violence. The rebels in the 1990 raid on parliament surrendered and were pardoned.

When Defreitas discussed his radical “brothers” with the informant, he made it clear they were not Arabs, but from Trinidad and Guyana.

The complaint also made clear how deeply the informant had infiltrated the small band of would-be terrorists. While Defreitas, a retired JFK airport cargo worker, made four reconnaissance missions to the airport with the informant, federal authorities recorded each one on audio and video.

Defreitas, 63, who emigrated to the US more than 30 years ago from Guyana, is in custody pending a bail hearing.

Ibrahim and another suspect, Abdul Kadir, are in custody in Trinidad awaiting extradition hearings. Officials identified Kadir as a former mayor of a Guyanese town and a member of the country’s parliament.

Authorities in Trinidad are still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.

Authorities said the JFK case and last month’s arrest of six men suspected of attacking soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, illustrated the need for inside information.

“These have been two significant cases back-to-back where informants were used,” Corrigan said.

“These terrorists are in our own back yard. They may have to reach out to people they don’t necessarily trust, but they need – for guns, explosives, whatever.”