During the earlier part of June 2023, an announcement was made by the FBI that an 18-year-old named Mateo Ventura was arrested for allegedly providing financial support to well-known terrorist group ISIS.
In the DOJ’s press release, they state that Ventura was indicted for “knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources that he intended to go to a foreign terrorist organization.”
However, a criminal complaint filed by the government actually reveals that Ventura never gave any money to a terrorist group…in fact, the only “terrorist” he had contact with was an undercover FBI agent.
This same agent had befriended Ventura at the age of 16, during which time he convinced the teen to produce gift cards.
The Intercept reported:
Contrary to the sensational narrative fed to the news media of terrorist financing in the U.S., the charging documents show that Ventura gave an undercover FBI agent gift cards for pitifully small amounts of cash, sometimes in $25 increments. In his initial bid to travel to the Islamic State, the teenager balked — making up an excuse, by the FBI’s own account, to explain why he did not want to go. When another opportunity to travel abroad arose, Ventura balked again, staying home on the evening of his supposed flight instead of traveling to the airport. By the time the investigation was winding down, he appeared ready to turn in his purported ISIS contact — an FBI agent — to the FBI.
To make matters worse, Ventura’s father, Paul, explained to the news outlet that his son suffered from childhood developmental issues.
Paul Ventura stated, “He was born prematurely, he had brain development issues. I had the school do a neurosurgery evaluation on him and they said his brain was underdeveloped. He was suffering endless bullying at school with other kids taking food off his plate, tripping him in the hallway, humiliating him, laughing at him.”
So this just serves as another example of the FBI grooming a mentally unwell young man to commit a horrific crime that would have not occurred otherwise.
Now, despite no real evidence showing that Ventura had actually been in contact with ISIS, his arrest is being framed by the DOJ as the foiling of an terrorist group funding operation.
