Former sailor pleads guilty in alleged plot to attack Great Lakes Naval Station​on February 28, 2025 at 12:35 am

NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. (WLS) — A former Navy sailor pleaded guilty in federal court to plotting to attack the Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, of North Chicago, pleaded guilty to conspiring to 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, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

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The guilty plea was entered on November 5, 2024 and unsealed Thursday.

Pang is being held without bond and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 27, 2025. The conviction is punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

According to court records in the summer of 2021, Pang communicated with an individual in Colombia about assisting Iranian actors to conduct an attack in the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the U.S. military in 2020.

An FBI agent posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force communicated with the individual in Colombia online who put the covert agent into contact with Pang, who was station at Naval Station Great Lakes, court records show.

Pang and the covert agent then communicate d through encrypted messages about possible targets for attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes, court records show.

Pang personally met with an undercover FBI agent three times in the fall of 2022, with Pang displaying photos and videos on hos phone from inside the Naval Station at one of the meetings.