First he was a cross-wearing Christian. Then he billed himself as an Italian from New Jersey with slicked-back hair and a fondness for “The Godfather.” After that, he tried to pass himself off as a Mexican who drank Corona and cooked carne asada.

But it was Joseph Farrokh’s last transformation — into a radical Muslim with plans to join the Islamic State — that has landed him in prison for the next 8 1/2 years. He was among seven young men from Northern Virginia prosecuted on similar charges this year alone, raising concerns about both a potential rise in radicalization and a policing approach that relies heavily on undercover agents or informants posing as radicals.

Another, Mahmoud Elhassan, a student and licensed cabdriver, is accused of pushing Farrokh toward terror. Haris Qamar was a gamer with aspirations in banking when he was accused of helping to make a propaganda video urging attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Mohamed Jalloh had been a Virginia National Guardsman before he allegedly bought a gun in preparation for a Fort Hood-style massacre. Others charged were a police officer, a man who studied justice administration and a pot-smoking drifter.

Together, their cases are a stark example of the challenges law enforcement officials face in uncovering those sympathetic to a terrorist group skilled at reaching out online to attract supporters — some of whom may seem unlikely converts — then sorting out which of those people are actually a danger.

“ISIS has done a good job projecting that they are not just about violence,” said John Horgan, an expert in terrorism research at Georgia State University. “They know that they’re going to appeal to the young person who’s just pissed off and has had a bad deal. But they also want the dreamer, the North American converts who are virtually clueless about Islam but are beguiled by this fantasy that they’ve bought into.”

[The Islamic State’s suspected inroads into America]

Several of the young men arrested in Virginia have been described in court as struggling to find work or finish school. Farrokh, who discussed traveling to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, ultimately wrote to a judge that he was attracted to the terrorist group because its propaganda gave him a “sense of belonging.”

None of the arrestees in Virginia was caught planning a definitive violent attack, according to court records. But experts say there is no real way to know who will act and who will merely posture as a radical.

Most grew up in Washington’s Virginia suburbs, with families and friends who now express despair and bafflement. A least four of the defendants went to Northern Virginia Community College, according to online records. All but one are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

[Seven accused of aiding the Islamic State in Virginia this year]

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my brother and wonder how everything got to this point, how my sweet, adorable and loving baby brother could have become so lost and confused,” Farrokh’s sister Jaleh Skeath wrote in a letter to the court.

Friends also were shocked to see the funny, helpful Qamar described as an obsessive Twitter promoter of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, who said slaughter made him “giddy.” Qamar’s parents had confiscated his passport, according to court documents, and hoped that his finding a steady job and a wife would end his infatuation with the Islamic State.

“I was blown away,” said Christopher Sutton, who worked at a cafe where Qamar used to play computer games. “He was a good guy; just your average guy that worked at the bank and played PC games in his free time.”

The FBI and the Department of Justice say that there is no new focus on or rise in terrorism-related activity in Northern Virginia, merely a dovetailing of several investigations.

“I don’t think Northern Virginia is unique. This is happening around the country,” said Andrew Ames, spokesman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

He noted that some investigations, such as the probe into Metro transit officer Nicholas Young, go back years. Young, who worked as a police officer in the D.C.-area transit system for six years, allegedly bought phone cards for use in Islamic State communications. Other cases came together in a matter of months.

Officials do say the area’s large Muslim community, the proximity to the nation’s capital and an aggressive U.S. attorney’s office help explain to the high number of cases. A Syracuse University study recently found that 1 in 5 terrorism prosecutions over the past two decades took place in Northern Virginia. One in 10 Islamic State-related cases originated in the state; close to a third of Islamic State cases this year were brought in Virginia.

“Sometimes we feel like they are trying to justify their employment,” Ehsan Islam, president of Manassas’s Muslim Association of Virginia said of the numerous FBI operations. “It goes on both sides though. . . . In a way, maybe it is good that they’re a little aggressive, [for] prevention.”

Rizwan Jaka, chairman of the board at the Muslim ADAMS Center in Dulles, Va., said that while he understands concerns about informants monitoring whole communities of Muslims, “there is no excuse for criminal behavior.”

“Everyone is trying to be more preventative, especially after the horrific attack in Orlando,” Jaka said. “It’s the reality of law enforcement being vigilant and the community being vigilant.”

When a suspect partners with someone in a criminal plot, he said, “if it’s an informant or an actual extremist, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “The person arrested thought it was a violent extremist.”

At his Dar Al-Noor mosque in Prince William County, Islam said, leaders regularly tell members to “get involved with your kids, know what they’re doing, be involved with their Internet activities.” Immigrant parents, he said, often do not communicate openly with their children or understand what they’re doing online.

The mosque is also trying to start more activities, such as soccer and weekly discussion groups, for young people who may have too much time on their hands.

Yusuf Wehelie was a drifter, his attorney says, when authorities say he talked about attacking a military installation. Mohamed Khweis, a graduate in justice administration with a taste for designer shoes, said he followed a girl to Syria before surrendering to Kurdish forces in Iraq.

Of the seven Virginia defendants, only Farrokh has pleaded guilty. The other cases are pending.

Farrokh’s parents were initially pleased to see him become religious. Ever since his family’s move to California when he was in middle school, he had clashed with his family and acted out. They suspected what he had hidden from them for years — an addiction to prescription opiates.

While they were surprised by his sudden marriage last year to a co-worker he met at a local mall, they were pleased to see him sober and committed to a new job as a nurse’s aide. His lectures on Islam, delivered to a Christian mother and a moderate Shiite Muslim father, they took as merely the zeal of a recent convert.

Farrokh, meanwhile, felt he finally belonged. He had found a cause worth believing in and even dying for: the fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Muslim legal advocates say that while FBI tactics probably do not rise to the level of legal entrapment, the use of undercover operatives or informants in six of the seven cases is concerning.

“It does seem problematic that you have seven out of one district,” said Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director at the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. In area mosques, he said, “there is a concern that these tactics are focusing in on folks they know may have mental-health issues, may have trouble at home or coming from a certain socioeconomic background, and they take these kids and try to push them to do something.”

Advocates also argue that a prosecution-only model alienates those whose help authorities need most. And it leaves no option in situations where the FBI is unable to make a case — as happened with Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, who had been under investigation for 10 months.

“The belief in the Muslim community at large is that they’re overwhelmed with spies,” said Charles Swift of the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America. “What you’ve accomplished is fear and loathing on both sides.”

Although law enforcement authorities have no clear alternative, former officers say they would often interview a suspect before an arrest in hopes of warning him or her away from criminal behavior.

“The FBI doesn’t have a lot of tools available . . . that allow [an] intermediate step,” said Don Borelli, a former FBI agent who led the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York. “The FBI is not meant to be a social service organization. But maybe there is some kind of an outlet program that would allow some branch of government to intercede.”

In Montgomery County, Md., a nonprofit organization called the World Organization for Resource Development and Education has developed a community-led anti-extremism model. A federal court in Minneapolis is experimenting with a post-prosecution de-radicalization program as an alternative to prison.

Farrokh’s attorney, Joseph Flood, petitioned for the de-radicalization expert who consulted in Minneapolis to help prepare an intervention plan for his client.

“There are no services available in the [Bureau of Prisons] designed to de-radicalize even the most willing participants,” Flood wrote.

The request was denied.

Farrokh, meanwhile, appears to have turned away from the terrorist group he once planned to join. He listened to the news of the Orlando massacre from jail, on a hand-held radio. In a letter to a federal judge, he said he wondered “what kind of sick person could do such a thing.”

“I am disgusted by it,” he wrote, “but I am also disgusted by myself.”