KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A 21-year-old Leawood, Kansas, man was among three people arrested Friday on charges they provided “material support” to ISIS.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that FBI agents arrested Bisaam Ghafoor of Leawood, Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, of Porterville, California, and Bereen Dzayee, 25, of Lakeside, California.
Federal prosecutors allege the trio provided more than $2,000 to a person they thought was a member of ISIS.
The charges were filed in U.S. District Court, District of Kansas.
“This administration has put terrorists, cartels and gangs on notice,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news release Friday. “Today’s arrest of three individuals who allegedly conspired to provide material support to ISIS makes clear our commitment to taking down terrorist networks — anywhere.”
According to court documents, federal law enforcement officials received a tip in March 2025 about social media posts from a user who pledged allegiance to ISIS. FBI agents eventually learned that the poster was Ghafoor.
The same tipster also provided information about a social media user, who also pledged allegiance to ISIS, who was later revealed to be Shamsaldeen.
In January 2026, FBI agents identified the third defendant on social media as Dzayee. Court documents allege the trio discussed weapons, explosives and “encouraging violence in the name of ISIS.”
Starting in May 2025, a confidential human source started talking with Ghafoor, Shamsaldeen and others on social media. Court documents reveal that Ghafoor and Dzayee believed the confidential human source was an active member of ISIS “as the CHS portrayed themself as such.”
The group allegedly offered to send money to the CHS via cryptocurrency.
Court documents indicate that in May 2026, the CHS messaged Ghafoor and Dzayee and asked them if they wanted to help ISIS by drones to “attack American military personnel overseas.”
Conversations continued through the next several days as the group tried to find a way to send the CHS money through cryptocurrency in a way that they wouldn’t get caught.
Around May 12, 2026, Ghafoor spoke with an undercover FBI employee, who agreed to meet Ghafoor at a mosque in Kansas City, Missouri, where he would accept $250 in cash from Ghafoor, and then convert it into cryptocurrency and send it to ISIS.
At the same time the CHS was working with Ghafoor and Dzayee, court documents reveal the CHS was in discussions with Shamsaldeen about funding the purchase of drones to be used by ISIS against U.S. military personnel. Shamsaldeen would eventually send nearly $1,600 to the CHS around May 30, 2026 — money prosecutors say he thought would go to support ISIS.
“According to the complaint, these defendants conspired to support ISIS, a ruthless terrorist organization, with the intent, among other things, to fund plans to kill American servicemembers abroad,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said. “Thanks to the work of the FBI, their plans to betray their country in the gravest way lies in ruin.”
Each defendant was charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
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