Detroit Man Bought Explosives from FBI Agent, Spoke of Attack: Feds

DETROIT, MI — A Metro Detroit man who had been amassing an arsenal of weapons and talking about carrying out an attack since at least April 2015 bought high-grade explosives from an undercover FBI agent on Sunday, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court Monday.

The charges against Sebastian Gregerson, who is also known as Abdurrahman Bin Mikaayl, were filed at the conclusion of a months-long FBI counterterrorism investigation launched in April 2015 when authorities got a tip that Gregerson, 29, had a cache of grenades and bazookas.

The charges, first reported by The Detroit News, include unregistered possession of a destructive device and unlicensed receipt of explosive materials. He was temporarily held without bond pending a Thursday detention hearing. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

The 16-page complaint, filed against a backdrop of heightened concern about domestic and Islamic State-inspired terrorism, details the 16-month undercover investigation into Gregerson's activities.

The court filings don’t make clear whether Gregerson was actually planning an attack, or why he had been building the cache of weapons, which included hundreds of rounds of AK-47 ammunition, handguns and dummy ammunition, tactical gear and training materials, ski masks, a training video for using a Russian assault rifle, commercial-grade road spikes to disable or slow vehicles and other items.

“In my training and experience, and that of other agents upon whose expertise I am also relying, the purchase of training versions of these weapons makes it unlikely that the weapons were purchased for recreational use, such as hunting,” an FBI special agent wrote in the complaint.

The Associated Press sent an email Tuesday seeking comment from Gregerson’s court-appointed lawyer, Miriam Siefer, who has not yet responded.

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