USA v. Saab, Alexei
Morristown, NJ

Hizballah

[SDNY] Alexei Saab of Morristown, New Jersey, was charged in a nine-count indictment for offenses related to his support for Hizballah and separate marriage-fraud offenses. The complaint alleged Saab was trained by Hizballah's external terrorist operations component in bomb-making and conducted intelligence gathering in New York City and Washington, DC, in support of Hizballah's attack-planning efforts. Saab joined Hizballah in 1996. His first Hizballah operation occurred in Lebanon, where he was tasked with observing and reporting on the movements of Israeli and Southern Lebanese Army soldiers in Yaroun, Lebanon. In approximately 1999, Saab attended his first Hizballah training. In 2000, Saab lawfully entered the United States using a Lebanese passport. In 2005, Saab applied for naturalized citizenship and falsely affirmed, under penalty of perjury, that he had never been "a member of or in any way associated with . . . a terrorist organization." In August 2008, Saab became a naturalized U.S. citizen. While living in the United States, Saab remained a Hizabllah operative, continued to receive military training in Lebanon, and conducted numerous operations for the terrorist group. Saab surveilled dozens of locations in New York City – including the United Nations headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building, and local airports, tunnels, and bridges – and provided detailed information on these locations, including photographs, to the Islamic Jihad Organization ("IJO"), which is responsible for the planning and coordination of intelligence, counterintelligence, and terrorist activities on behalf of Hizballah outside of Lebanon. Saab was convicted in May 2022 of receiving military-type training from a designated foreign terrorist organization, Hizballah, marriage fraud conspiracy, and making false statements. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for receiving military-type training from Hizballah, marriage fraud, and making false statements.