Former Naval Station Great Lakes sailor pleads guilty to plotting attack on military base

CHICAGO - A former sailor stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes has pleaded guilty to federal charges for plotting an attack on the north suburban Chicago military base, prosecutors announced Thursday.

What we know:

Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, of North Chicago, admitted in U.S. District Court in November to conspiring and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities, with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the United States, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois. His plea deal was unsealed Thursday.

The backstory:

Government records show Pang was born in Changchun City, China, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen after moving to the United States in June 1998. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy around Feb. 1, 2022.

In the summer of 2021, Pang spoke with a person in Colombia about assisting in an attack against the United States in response to the U.S. military’s 2020 killing of Qasem Soleimani, a general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, according to court records. The Quds Force, a branch of the IRGC, specializes in unconventional warfare and intelligence operations outside Iran.

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An undercover FBI agent, posing as a Quds Force affiliate, contacted the Colombian online about planning an attack. The Colombian then connected the agent with Pang, who was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, according to court records.

Prosecutors said Pang, who also went by the name Raven, used an encrypted messaging app to communicate with the agent, discussing potential targets—including the naval base and other locations in the Chicago area—that would cause "max damage."

After Pang and the Colombian agreed to assist in the operation, Pang met three times in the fall of 2022 with a person posing as an associate of the undercover FBI agent, according to court records. The meetings took place outside Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago and twice at a train station in Lake Bluff.

During the Lake Bluff meetings, the plot’s focus shifted to the naval station. Pang showed surveillance photos and videos he had taken of various locations inside and outside the base. He also provided two military uniforms for operatives to wear during the attack and a cell phone to be "used in a test for a detonator."

What's next:

Pang remains in custody and is scheduled for sentencing on May 27, 2025. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

The Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes multiple federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, investigated the case.