The arrest was the culmination of a covert operation that disrupted Teekaye’s plans to travel abroad to join the terrorist group.
According to court documents, Teekaye had been in contact with a Somali member of ISIS since early 2023, discussing his desire to fight in Africa. His intended route was through
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...and Æthiopia before reaching Somalia.
Court filings also revealed that Teekaye had a secondary plan to carry out an attack in the United States targeting supporters of Israel, in case his international venture was not successful.
An FBI agent, under cover, had been monitoring these communications, where Teekaye expressed his commitment to joining ISIS.
Teekaye’s arrest occurred as he was about to depart from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. If found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
A 21-year-old Maryland man was in custody Thursday after an undercover operation revealed he was trying to work with a terrorist group. He even spoke with an undercover officer about a plot to carry out a terrorist attack against Jewish people and Israel supporters in the United States.
According to Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland and Special Agent in Charge William DelBagno of the FBI, Michael Sam Teekaye Jr. of Hanover was been charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Teekaye was arrested on Monday and has been detained since then.
On three occasions in May and June 2024, Teekaye purchased ammunition and range time at a shooting range in Severn, Maryland, which he later told the undercover officer was partly in order to "train."
Then, documents say in July 2024, Teekaye tried to buy a Kalishnikov rifle, but the purchase was denied because Teekaye was on probation.
In later conversations with the undercover officer between August and October 2024, Teekaye said he was in contact with a Somali ISIS fighter about his plans to travel there to join ISIS. Teekaye explained that he would fly first to Turkey, then travel to Ethiopia and cross the border into Somalia. Teekaye sent the officer screenshots of an Ethiopian e-Visa he had obtained from the ISIS fighter. He also sent screenshots of his itinerary that showed him departing from Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) on Oct. 14.
On Oct. 10, he sent undercover agents a picture of himself in a black mask and holding a machete.
Last Friday, the officer asked if Teekaye was sure he wanted to join ISIS. Teekaye responded, “I am sure I did a lot of research and had to accept something’s [sic] that they are the only group that has the most true and sincere intentions,” according to the documents.
FBI agents arrested Teekaye on Monday at BWI. After being advised of his right to remain silent, Teekaye told the arresting officers, "I’ll just get out in 20 years and do something here. Okay? Okay? You will never stop me. Jihad will never stop . . . I’ll be like 40 when I get out, then I’ll just do it. I don’t care. You will never stop me."
The FBI first learned of Teekaye in December 2019 when the agency saw one of his social media accounts expressing extremist Islamist ideology.
The Baltimore Banner has lots of photos, some of young Mr. Teekaye’s background, and lots of excerpts from his exchanges with FBI informants.
Michael Teekaye first got on the FBI’s radar as a teenager in December 2019, when agents say he expressed an interest in extremist Islamic ideology on social media.Teekaye, a 21-year-old from Hanover, is being held without bond on a charge of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The federal public defender’s office has been appointed to represent him, but no attorney has made an appearance in the case as of Wednesday afternoon.
Teekaye is on probation until September 2025 on a misdemeanor charge. Two years ago, Teekaye showed up at an elementary school in Columbia, holding a large fixed-blade knife and wearing a black face mask, Howard County Police reported. Teekaye was there to fight a classmate, he told the officers later, with whom he was having a conflict. It’s unclear who the classmate was. He had a pocketknife with him as well.
The affidavit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, lays out how the FBI says Teekaye, who as a 16-year-old, was forcibly hospitalized after the Howard County Police Department reported in 2019 that he said he wanted to “cut the head off” of a classmate, went down the road that led to his arrest at the airport Tuesday.
The FBI’s affidavit is based on chats between Teekaye and undercover FBI employees on Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp and in conversations with undercover agents. The affidavit lays out a series of chats about Teekaye joining various branches of the Islamic State in Africa and, at one point plotting to attack Jews or supporters of Israel living in Maryland.
Teekaye’s social media account was disabled in 2019 for posts where he expressed support for extremist views.
Teekaye was forcibly hospitalized a second time. A Psychiatric Institute of Washington admission assessment found Teekaye was “obsessed with Muslim culture, posting social media with terrorist material, threatened to kill all Americans, threatened to kill [his] parents. His outpatient psychiatrist was concerned about his homicidal ideation and increasing aggression.”
Teekaye acknowledged he was a “danger” to himself and others, that he had said he wanted to kill his parents because he was angry at them.
“They kept getting me mad and angry,” he told his outpatient psychiatrist. “They were screaming at me and stuff … I guess because of what happened with the FBI and stuff … They found stuff on my phone … like radical Islam stuff.”
Earlier this summer, Teekaye, who worked a several restaurants in Anne Arundel County, tried to purchase a gun, but he was denied due to being on probation. He had been going to Cindy’s Hot Shots, a shooting range in Severn, and had been able to buy ammunition.
Michael Teekaye Jr., 21, was arrested on Monday after he went through security.
The FBI alleges a terrorist organization paid for his flight.
Teekaye has a history of mental health issues.
"The facts will have to play out so we understand completely what was going on here," said Professor Michael Greenberger, who founded the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "At the present time, there is enough information for all of us to be concerned, but we need more information to determine whether this would have happened but for him being lured by the FBI or whether he was inclined to do this from the get-go."
TROUBLING PAST
Court records show a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a past incident where Teekaye stood outside an elementary school in Columbia, Howard County, masked and holding a knife. He told police he wanted to fight a classmate.
Teekaye is still on probation for that incident.
And because of that, he was unable to buy a weapon when he tried to do so.
Teekaye had been hospitalized twice for his mental health issues under emergency petitions.
AIRPORT ARREST
The FBI alleged a Somali ISIS fighter booked a ticket for Teekaye and planned to meet him in Africa.
Police said Teekaye was combative at his BWI arrest and told them, "You will never stop me. Jihad will never stop."
Professor Greenberger noted the FBI has been under fire to make more progress against terror organizations and said this arrest may not be the most consequential.
"There is an expectation that the FBI is going to be going deeper and finding people who are more of a threat from the get-go to the United States than someone such as this. I want to make clear, this kind of person if the facts are correct, can't be ignored, but this is not the big fish that all of us are hoping the FBI will be able to capture," Greenberger said.
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