Target: America: JFK Plot
By Madeleine Gruen
The NEFA Foundation has released the sixteenth installment in the “Target: America” series, which examines the 2006/07 plot to attack jet fuel tanks and the adjoining fuel pipeline at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). The attack was conceived by Guyanese-American Russell Defreitas, a former cargo handler at JFK. Defreitas conspired from New York, with others located in Guyana, and with an FBI informant he befriended in New York. Defreitas and the informant conducted surveillance at JFK, traveled to Guyana to solidify attack plans with the other conspirators, and then traveled to Trinidad with the intention of securing financial and expert assistance from the leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen The conspirators were arrested in Spring 2007, and are now in New York City awaiting trial. This report intends to provide as much detail as possible about the development of the plot, the background of the conspirators, their ideological motivation, their method of target selection, and their methods of operation.