FBI entrapment targets poor, vulnerable Black men near mosques

Evidence

An FBI informant named Shahed Hussain, posing as a wealthy Pakistani businessman, lured four men from Newburgh, New York, into a plot to bomb two synagogues. Hussain was responsible for creating the plot, for overseeing the surveillance of the synagogues, and for providing fake weapons to the men. All four men were African Americans from impoverished backgrounds. One had a mental illness. Another had a brother in desperate need of a liver transplant. Hussain preyed on their vulnerabilities and used financial incentives to convince the four to join his plot. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 569 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Reda Shata learned firsthand why it doesn’t pay to associate with the law enforcement establishment. He worked with the FBI and the police, inviting officers to his mosque for breakfast and even dining with Mayor Bloomberg. He personified everything that American imperialism has defined as a “good Muslim.” Yet an undercover police officer and an informant were assigned to spy on him and to keep tabs on his mosque. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 586 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Poverty and desperation make entrapment targets vulnerable to paid informants — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 587; Anti-terror operations disproportionately net poor Black men incited by paid informants — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 588; FBI coerces Muslim community members to become informants under threat — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 563 (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• FBI informants exploit poverty and grief to entrap vulnerable men into fake plots #corroborates (0.95)
• FBI informants recruit vulnerable poor men into terror plots with money and fake weapons. #corroborates (0.95) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 569
• Even Muslims who cooperated with the FBI were placed under surveillance #complicates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 586
• FBI coerced Muslim community members into informing using fabricated threats #complicates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 563
• FBI surveillance drives Muslim congregations to self-police and Americanize #complicates (0.80)