How the FBI linked a Pakistani student in Ontario to an alleged plot to kill Jews in New York

Nearly a year before a Pakistani man hit the road in the Toronto area — allegedly headed to New York to kill "as many Jewish people as possible" in an ISIS-inspired mass shooting — his Facebook profile caught the eye of an FBI informant.

What followed was a months-long undercover investigation into Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a student living in Mississauga, Ont., that culminated in his arrest by the  RCMP's national security unit near the U.S. border in Quebec on Sept. 4.

A 16-page summary of U.S. prosecutors' evidence in the case, obtained by CBC News, reveals new details about how investigators first learned of Khan's alleged support for ISIS, and how they say he put in motion his plot to "slaughter" Jews. The document was filed in Quebec Superior Court last week, as Canada's justice minister authorized extradition proceedings for the 20-year-old to face a terrorism charge in the U.S.

Khan's lawyer says the U.S. investigation may have amounted to "entrapment."

According to the new court filing, on Oct. 8, 2023, a longtime FBI informant spotted a Facebook post that contained a quote attributed to an extremist Islamic preacher. Later that month, the same account reposted a graphic showing a disassembled firearm, alongside a call for unity among Muslims.

The Facebook user, identified as "Shahzeb Jadoon," turned out to be Khan, U.S. authorities say.

He had come to Canada on a student visa just four months before attracting the FBI source's attention. A security assessment by Canadian immigration officials done earlier in the year had not found any "risk indicators," records show.

Within weeks, the unnamed FBI informant reported Khan's continued Facebook posts to U.S. federal agents and began communicating with him, at the direction of investigators.

Their chat moved off Facebook, to a series of encrypted messaging platforms, as Khan purportedly expressed concern about the FBI being able to execute a search warrant and uncover his phone number.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Khan began sending the informant ISIS propaganda, including videos and a 100-page PDF file. "This book is soo beneficial," Khan is said to have written. "Reading the book is giving me [an] adrenaline rush."

On March 21, the FBI provided the RCMP with details about the person they'd been monitoring, including his Ontario IP addresses, Facebook and Snapchat accounts and a Pakistani phone number. Five months later, the Mounties shared Khan's name and address in Mississauga.

By then, U.S. investigators had noted Khan appeared in a "pro-ISIS group chat," involving discussions "about how to carry out coordinated attacks" in the U.S., India, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Alleged murder plot hatched in the summer

By late July, according to the Quebec court filing, Khan spoke of a plan to create "a real offline cell" of ISIS supporters and carry out an attack on "Zionist Jews." All the while, two U.S.-based undercover officers had infiltrated his chats and were taking notes.

After the RCMP disrupted a father and son duo's alleged mass murder plot in Toronto days later, Khan is quoted as saying the arrests illustrated the need to "lay low" and for his "cell to be small and well armed."

By late August, U.S. prosecutors allege Khan's own plan was set. He would purportedly pay a human smuggler to help him cross into the U.S., and he asked accomplices to acquire hunting knives, camouflage shirts, tactical vests, AR-style rifles and "900 rounds of ammunition and 10 magazines each," stated the evidence document. 

Their reported target: a Jewish centre in Brooklyn to be attacked on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel. 

"Brothers… we are going to nyc to slaughter them," Khan purportedly wrote. "Locked and loaded waiting for wednesday morning now."

Before sunrise on the September day that he was arrested, RCMP watched as somewhere in the Toronto area, Khan got into a vehicle and headed east. After nine hours on the road — and after changing drivers twice — Khan was arrested by heavily armed officers near a gas station in Ormstown, Que., about 60 kilometres southwest of Montreal and roughly 20 kilometres from the New York state border.

Lawyer alleges 'entrapment'

CBC previously reported Khan was in the process of seeking refugee status in Canada, according to a self-styled immigration consultant based in Mississauga. Court records, however, suggest Khan had no intention of surviving the planned attack in New York. 

By August, "he had already made up his mind that he would not be alive two months from now," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Robles wrote in the documents filed in Quebec Superior Court.

Khan is detained in a Rimouski, Que., jail as extradition proceedings play out. U.S. authorities want him to stand trial on a charge of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, ISIS.

His Montreal-based lawyer, Gaétan Bourassa, told reporters last week that he suspects U.S. law enforcement lured Khan into committing the acts he's accused of. 

"My impression [is that he] was the victim of entrapment by police officers in the States," the lawyer said. Bourassa added that he was waiting to view more evidence in the case.

Khan's case is scheduled to return to a Montreal courtroom later this month.