Did a Mentally Challenged Teenager Just Become the Victim of an FBI Entrapment Scheme? –

The Department of Justice waited to arrest alleged terrorist Mateo Ventura until he turned 18 — after two years of contact with the FBI. On Thursday, a federal judge determined the teen should undergo mental health treatment. 

Ventura’s family claimed he suffers from brain development issues as a result of being born prematurely. His father claimed a neurosurgery evaluation confirmed that his brain is underdeveloped. According to his father, Ventura also faced relentless bullying in school. (RELATED: The Federal Bureau of Intimidation)

His father’s claims certainly align with Ventura’s behavior in court — Ventura spent the day of his hearing in a district court rocking back and forth and staring at the floor. A federal judge decided he should first receive mental health treatment.

Following treatment, Ventura will attend another detention hearing.

Ventura’s Communication With the FBI

Ventura was accused of running a gift card reselling scheme alongside a man he believed to be a member of the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria. Over two years, Ventura sent a total of $1,670 to the man. He was arraigned on the charge of “knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.” 

The DOJ claimed Ventura was withholding information from the FBI. The supposed ISIS terrorist he was in contact with, however, was actually an FBI informant. The agent was the only “terrorist” he was accused of contacting.

According to the Intercept, Ventura began communicating with the undercover FBI agent in August 2021 — when he was 16 — claiming he wanted to “make Hijrah,” that is, to move to an area controlled by the Islamic state. Ventura mentioned his interest in moving to another country to fight for ISIS to the undercover agent. He eventually agreed to send money to the agent in the form of a gift card after further conversation.

Despite his claims about wanting to “make Hijrah,” Ventura was hesitant to follow through with the plan. When the opportunity came for him to fly to Egypt to do so, Ventura decided not to take the flight. On the day of, Ventura betrayed the masquerading ISIS contact when he attempted to report the undercover agent to the FBI, saying he would exchange information about the supposed terrorist he was speaking to if the FBI gave him “10 million dollars in duffel bags.” At the time, Ventura did not know that the man he wanted to turn in was a federal informant. 

The Bureau’s History of Entrapment

Given the circumstances of Ventura’s contact with the FBI, it is possible that the FBI agent entrapped him, a tactic the bureau often uses to apprehend those predisposed to committing an act of terrorism. However, because the only terrorist Ventura was accused of contacting was actually an undercover agent, evidence that he would have followed through with any act of crime independently of FBI involvement is scant.

According to an article published by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin:

[L]aw enforcement officials cannot afford to wait for a terrorist plot to mature before they break it up. A delay could enable an unidentified plotter to launch an attack. In other words, law enforcement must, in a controlled manner, divert someone determined to harm the United States and its people into a plot bound to fail from the outset, instead of one that might succeed.

When it comes to catching a dangerous terrorist, time is of the essence. But the DOJ did not arrest Ventura on a criminal offense until two years after his initial contact with the agency. Further, it appears that the FBI spent much less time trying to divert a dangerous criminal than it did encouraging Ventura’s behavior.

If Ventura did get caught up in an entrapment scheme, he would not be the first. Similar cases include the entrapments of Mahin Khan, a man with the “mentality capacity of a child,” and of Adel Daoud, a socially isolated teenager who did not talk until the age of 5, who were each arrested on charges of terrorism.

According to an investigation from Columbia Law School on “Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions,” informants often “choose targets based on their religious or political beliefs.”

Informants “often chose targets who were particularly vulnerable — whether because of mental disability, or because they were indigent and needed money that the government offered them,” the report states. 

The Need for FBI Reform

In order to avoid similar situations in the future, National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke offers bullet-point solutions for FBI reform: