‘Fake’ US agent who gave gifts to security assigned to President Joe Biden’s wife claimed ties to Pakistani intelligence

Haider Ali, 35 who claimed to have ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service is charged with conspiracy after posing as a US Department of Homeland Security agent

Ali and Arian Taherzadeh also accused of providing lucrative favours to Secret Service members, including agent on security detail to First Lady Jill Biden

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Affidavit to support the arrest of Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali. Federal prosecutors have charged the two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to US Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail. Both were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Published: 1:22pm, 8 Apr 2022Updated: 3:02pm, 8 Apr 2022

One of two men arrested in Washington for posing as US federal security officials and cultivating access to the Secret Service, which protects President Joe Biden, claimed ties to Pakistani intelligence, a federal prosecutor told a judge on Thursday.

Justice Department assistant lawyer Joshua Rothstein asked a judge not to release Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, the men arrested Wednesday for posing as Department of Homeland Security investigators.

The men also stand accused of providing lucrative favours to members of the Secret Service, including one agent on the security detail of First Lady Jill Biden.

Two men accused of providing lucrative favours to Secret Service members, including an agent on security detail to First Lady Jill BidenFirst lady Jill Biden speaks during a commissioning ceremony for USS Delaware, Virginia-class fast-attack submarine, at the Port of Wilmington in Wilmington, Del., Saturday, April 2, 2022. Photo: AP

Rothstein told the court that in 2019, just months before the two began cultivating security professionals in their Washington apartment building, Ali had travelled to Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and Qatar, and transited Doha multiple times.

In addition, Rothstein said, Ali “made claims to witnesses that he had connections to the ISI, which is the Pakistani intelligence service.”

The Justice Department is treating the case as a criminal matter and not a national security issue. But the Secret Service suspended four agents over their involvement with the suspects.

“All personnel involved in this matter are on administrative leave and are restricted from accessing Secret Service facilities, equipment, and systems,” the Secret Service said in a statement.