Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, were arrested Wednesday night when FBI agents and United States Postal Service officers flooded the luxury Crossing Apartments in the capital’s Navy Yard district and accused them of being fake. According to an unsealed affidavit filed in federal court, the couple posed as high-level DHS agents for more than two years, flashing official IDs, carrying Glocks and driving black SUVs with emergency lights while living alone outside the many luxury Crossroads and “thank” the federal law enforcement and defense officials, some of whom were tempted to live in the same building. During the two men’s attempts to contact real federal law enforcement officers, prosecutors say Taherzadegh paid close attention to Secret Service agents, who became a member of the Interior Ministry in 2003. In one case, Taherzadeh tried to give a member of First Lady Jill Biden’s secret service a $ 2,000 assault rifle and lent his “government vehicle” to the agent’s wife, the jury said. Other Secret Service agents had access to $ 40,000 a year in rent-free apartments, as well as “iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen TV, a rifle case, a generator and law enforcement tools.” says the affidavit. Residents of Crossings, including some of the trapped Secret Service agents, have since told investigators that the band appeared to be being closely monitored by Taherzadeh. The courtship of the Secret Service staff had serious consequences. Following the revelation of the alleged fraud of Taherzadeh and Ali, “four members of the Secret Service were placed on administrative leave pending further investigation,” the FBI said. In another troubling sign of how convincing the two men’s alleged trick was, Taherzadeh and Ali successfully lured an anonymous “applicant” into a Homeland Security “working group” they had invented. But their “recruitment process” included shooting the applicant with an air rifle, supposedly to assess their tolerance of pain, and the applicant investigating an anonymous person who worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. The scam allegedly collapsed when neighbors gave their fingers to the two men as federal law enforcement agents who may have witnessed an attack on a post office in their apartment complex. “When a U.S. Postal Service inspector showed up to investigate, Taherzadeh and Ali allegedly said they were members of the non-existent U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit, which they claimed was part of the Department of Homeland Security.” After the Postal Inspector learned that the two men were allegedly traveling in a black GMC SUV equipped with emergency lights and connected to real Homeland Security officials, the real federal law enforcement agent informed the Attorney General, who informed the Attorney General. the FBI investigation that led to the charges against Taherzadeh and Ali.
