FBI Charges Florida Man Over Alleged Plot to Bomb New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange, on Feb. 21, 2024. Peter Morgan/AP Photo

A man from Coral Springs, Florida, was arrested on Nov. 20 for an alleged plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange this week.

Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, 30, was charged with attempting to use an improvised explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate or foreign commerce, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

An investigation into Yener was opened in February following a tip-off that he was storing bomb-making schematics in an unlocked storage unit in Coral Springs, according to the FBI summary in court documents.

They found bomb-making sketches, watches with timers, electronic circuit boards, and other electronics that could be used for building explosive devices, the FBI said in court documents. Agents also discovered Yener had conducted searches online related to bomb-making since 2017, according to the FBI.

It alleged by law enforcement that Yener, born in the United States in 1994, also told a confidential informant that he wanted to join a militia.

The FBI said in the filing that Yener told an undercover FBI agent, whom “he believed was part of a militia,” that he wanted to detonate a bomb the week before Thanksgiving and had identified the New York Stock Exchange as a target.

During a meeting with undercover FBI agents, he is alleged to have tasked them with “procuring the explosive element for the device” and “conducting surveillance on the NYSE.”

“The Stock Exchange, we want to hit that, because it will wake people up,” he told undercover FBI agents, according to court documents.

Yener, described as “unhoused,” wanted to bomb the stock exchange in order to “reboot” the U.S. government, it is alleged.

On Nov. 4, he allegedly told an undercover FBI agent that the detonation would “be like a small nuke went off.”

He also thought the wider public would support an attack on the exchange, allegedly saying, “Tons of people would support it. They would see it and think, dude, this guy makes sense.”

He also allegedly discussed bombing a power plant to “greatly inconvenience local government and the community.”

The U.S. District Attorney’s Office for Florida said in a Nov. 20 statement that Yener planned on wearing a disguise when planting the explosive device outside the exchange.

Yener appeared in court on Nov. 20 and is being held in pretrial detention, with the right to request a hearing at a later date.

Calls to telephone numbers listed for Yener in public records went unanswered and a lawyer was not listed in court records.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.