Accused Federal Reserve bomb plotter pleads guilty

A Bangladeshi man pleaded guilty Thursday to plotting to blow up New York's Federal Reserve Bank.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon in Brooklyn, New York, to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, Bloomberg reported.

“I am the person who chose to bomb the Federal Reserve Bank,” Nafis said in court, making clear that it was his intention, not federal agents’, to carry out the plot.

“I no longer support violent jihad.”

He faces a minimum of 30 years to life in prison under his plea agreement, the judge said.

Nafis was arrested in October last year after parking a van packed with what he thought was a 1,000 pound bomb outside the bank, the New York Daily News reported.

He was charged with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempting to provide material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, al Qaeda.

CNN reported Nafis entered the United States on a student visa under the pretext of attending college at Southeast Missouri State University.

But he soon began his alleged plot to carry out an attack on the US. He became the subject of a joint FBI and NYPD sting operation who helped him plot the attack and provided Nafis with the fake bomb. 

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Police allege Nafis further divulged a "Plan B" to the FBI agent that involved carrying out a suicide attack should police thwart his efforts.

Following his arrest his father, Quazi Mohammad Ahsanullah, a banker in Dhaka, dismissed the allegations, and told media that he does not believe his son was capable of carrying out such an attack. He said his son is a timid person who's often scared to travel alone.