After months of planning, on February 24, 2015, an associate drove Saidakhmetov to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport for his flight to Turkey. That associate also gave him $1,700 in cash for travel and to purchase weapons when he got to Syria.

But he never got on the plane. Saidakhmetov, who had been under surveillance for months, was arrested by the FBI before he could board.

Simultaneously, agents in Brooklyn arrested Juraboev, who had already purchased his own plane ticket and was planning to go to Syria via Turkey the following month, at his Brooklyn apartment. Their ISIS facilitator was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, along with an additional co-conspirator in Norfolk, Virginia. Other co-conspirators were later arrested in New Haven and Chicago.

Later in 2015, Juraboev pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and was sentenced in October 2017 to 15 years in prison. Last year, Saidakhmetov pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and, in December, was also sentenced to 15 years. Others have pleaded guilty to helping the two men.

“Their intent was to go to Syria and fight, but they indicated they were fully committed to conducting an attack in the U.S. if they could not get there,” Pachtman said.

Stopping the would-be terrorists was a team effort, involving FBI field offices across the country, as well as the New York City Police Department and the Secret Service.

“Considering the huge scope of this investigation and the threat they posed, it was one of the most meaningful cases of my career to be a part of the team that investigated this serious threat,” Pachtman said. “This was a true task force investigation, and we were on the front lines of identifying and stopping aspiring ISIS fighters.”