Davud Ansariy, who allegedly leads a Brooklyn, N.Y., network that has financed travel to Syria for aspiring ISIS and al-Nusrah Front fighters, was extradited from the country of Georgia to the United States on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
An Uzbek national and naturalized U.S. citizen, he was arrested in Tbilisi in August. He was due to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday on charges of conspiring to provide and providing material support to the terrorist groups. He faces up to 35 years in prison.
Prosecutors said that members of the network called it “Chayxona,” an Uzbek word for “Tea Party.” The group allegedly collected money for fighters to travel and for families left behind.
Its collections funded at least three people’s trips to Syria in 2013, according to the Justice Department. All three are believed to have died there.
“After a decade on the run, Ansariy is back in the United States where he must answer to the charge that he supported two of the most ruthless terrorist groups in the world,” stated John Eisenberg, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security.
Ansariy left the United States for Turkey in May 2016, five days after a co-conspirator’s arrest. A Brooklyn grand jury indicted him in 2021.
