WASHINGTON — Authorities have arrested yet another man for his involvement in the planned attack on the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House.
Twenty-year-old Alexander Iniguez Mercado of Chicago is charged with obstruction of justice related to his involvement in planning the attack. He served as the administrator of Signal chats where individuals communicated about planning the June 14 UFC attack, according to an indictment returned Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Authorities arrested him on Thursday and he is scheduled to appear in court on Friday at 3 p.m., according to the Justice Department.
Mercado is one of eight individuals who have been charged in connection to the attack, which authorities discovered ahead of time and put a stop to. His charge of obstruction of justice is punishable with up to 20 years in prison.
The attempted attackers planned to use explosive drones to cause panic at the UFC event and drive attendees out of specific entrances where snipers would then open fire. Authorities discovered the plot after 19-year-old Tycen Proper’s mother called about her son’s recent firearms purchases and his communications with concerning individuals online.
Proper was planning the attack with a group of nearly two dozen others, according to a criminal complaint, many of whom have not yet been arrested. His parents told law enforcement that their son had recently quit his job and appeared to have become radicalized online.
(Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC)
One day before the UFC event, according to the DOJ, a special agent from the FBI spoke with Mercado on the telephone and said he was calling to “discuss online threats regarding the UFC event,” asking whether Mercado was planning to go to D.C. to help with the attack.
Mercado denied that he was planning to go to D.C. and said he wouldn’t meet with the agent, then uninstalled the Signal app on his phone, deleting the data that would include his Signal messages, according to the indictment.
“Obstructing justice in a law enforcement investigation into a planned violent domestic attack is a profoundly serious offense,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said on Friday.
“The investigation in this case involved serious threats to public safety, including the safety of President Donald J. Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America, other members of government, as well as the many attendees and athletes who attended the event at the White House,” he added. “Any obstructive conduct to interfere with this investigation undermines the integrity of the justice system as well as the rule of law.”
The Daily Wire reported last week that the mastermind of the attack, Abraham Alvarez, who was “responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the planned attack,” was an illegal immigrant who had overstayed his visa after being brought into the United States as a child.
“This illegal alien from Mexico should never have been allowed in our country,” DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said earlier this month. “He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House.
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