Fla. Man Arrested for Plotting to Bomb New York Stock Exchange Ahead of Thanksgiving, Say Officials

A Florida resident has been arrested for allegedly planning to plant a bomb in New York City ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, 30, from Coral Springs, Fla. was detained and charged with attempting to use an explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce on Wednesday, Nov. 20, according to a release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida.

The FBI said in a criminal complaint that it began investigating Yener in February after “receiving a tip” that he had been “storing bombmaking schematics in an unlocked storage unit,” according to the release. 

Authorities subsequently found “bombmaking sketches” and items used to create bombs including electronic circuit boards, watches with timers and other items in his storage unit, the release stated. They also found “multiple internet searches” on bombmaking from Yener’s Google account that dated back to 2017.

Yener further met up with an undercover FBI employees, whom he believed to be a part of “an anti-government militia,” and told one of them about his “desire” to join the militia and “construct an explosive device” in June.

“After meeting an FBI undercover employee… Yener indicated he wanted to target a business located in New York City the week before Thanksgiving,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida said in its release. “His stated motivation for bombing the business was to attain a ‘reboot’ and/or ‘reset’ of the United States government.”

The Fla. resident “constructed a remote trigger for the explosive device” and “conducted research on where to plant the bomb,” officials said. He also “tasked” undercover FBI employees with obtaining the “explosive element for the device,” surveilling the business, and getting photos of the targeted building “to identify the precise location for detonating the explosive device.”

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According to charging documents obtained by the Associated Press, CBS News and BBC, Yener indicated that he intended to carry out his plot at the New York Stock Exchange.

“The Stock Exchange, we want to hit that, because it will wake people up,” he told undercover agents, reported AP.

The affidavit added that he “planned on wearing a disguise” and indicated he wanted to plant the explosive “outside the business,” according to CBS News. Yener also recorded a message to be delivered to the press that outlined his reasons for the attack, reported the BBC. 

“Yener anticipated the impact of the explosion would be ‘like a small nuke went off’ and that ‘[a]nything outside’ the building ‘will be wiped out’ and ‘anything inside there would be killed,’ ” officials said in their release.

Yener appeared in court on the day of his arrest and will remain detained while he awaits trial.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for a copy of the criminal complaint.