Three Kansas men have been accused of plotting attacks targeting an apartment complex home, a mosque and many Muslim immigrants from Somalia, authorities said Friday.
Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright and Patrick Eugene Stein face federal charges of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, the Justice Department announced.
“These charges are based on eight months of investigation by the FBI that is alleged to have taken the investigators deep into a hidden culture of hatred and violence,” acting U.S. attorney Tom Beall said in a statement. “Many Kansans may find it as startling as I do that such things could happen here.”
According to the FBI complaint made public Friday, the investigation was prompted by a paid confidential informant who had attended meetings with a group of individuals calling themselves “the Crusaders” and had heard plans discussed for attacks on Muslims, whom the men called “cockroaches.”
