Brothers in Indiana agreed to make over 50 automatic ‘ghost guns’ for ISIS, feds say
Two brothers will spend years in prison after officials say they manufactured and sold guns they believed would be used by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Moyad Dannon, 25, and his brother, Mahde Dannon, pleaded guilty to“attempting to provide material support or resources, namely, firearms, to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” according to a Dec. 14 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana.
“My client is a bright young man with a lot of potential, and I hope that, once released from prison, he is still able to realize that potential because I think he has a lot to offer his community in a law-abiding and constructive manner,” Moyad Dannon’s attorney Jessie Cook said in an email to McClatchy News.
An attorney for Mahde Dannon was not listed in court records.
In June 2018, the brothers came up with a plan to deliver stolen guns to a convicted felon working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the release. Between June and December of that year, the brothers sold the person “illegally obtained” guns, officials said.
The brothers started making untraceable “ghost guns” at about that time, too according to officials.
The two purchased gun parts online, assembled the parts into “fully-functioning, .223 caliber semi-automatic rifles” and sold them to an undercover FBI agent, officials said.
By the end of 2018, the two began to manufacture untraceable, fully automatic, .223-caliber rifles as well, according to officials.
Not long after, Moyad Dannon went with the undercover agent to a spot near the southwest border of the U.S. so he could show the guns to a potential buyer, prosecutors said. However, the buyer was also cooperating with the FBI, officials said.
Moyad Dannon learned the potential buyer wanted to ship the guns to the Middle East for ISIS to use, prosecutors said. Still, the brothers agreed to make and sell at least 55 more fully automatic “ghost guns” to the buyer, according to officials.
“FBI agents located a flash drive on Moyad’s keychain containing approximately 16 gigabytes of ISIS propaganda, including graphically violent videos depicting ISIS fighters beheading civilians and hostages, and ISIS snipers killing U.S. military personnel,” officials said.
He told an undercover agent he wanted to travel to ISIS-controlled areas in Syria, so he could “utilize his knowledge of firearms and other skills to provide direct military assistance to ISIS in its’ fight against the United States and Syrian government,” according to officials.
“For nearly a year, these defendants worked persistently to arm murderous terrorists with deadly, illegal weapons,” United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Zachary A. Myers said in the release.
“I think that this case illustrates the government’s misplaced priorities and they should focus their resources on domestic terrorism, which targets the United States and, according to both the FBI and the Justice Department, poses the greatest threat to national security,” Cook said.
Moyad Dannon was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison. Mahde Dannon was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2021.
This story was originally published December 14, 2023 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Brothers in Indiana agreed to make over 50 automatic ‘ghost guns’ for ISIS, feds say."
