NYPD undercover unit key in NJ terror arrests

By TOM HAYS Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Authorities credit an undercover investigator with the New York Police Department who posed as a devout Muslim with helping expose two would-be terrorists.

NYPD officials said Monday that five years ago, the unidentified officer skipped the police academy and went straight into a little-known program that grooms undercover officers for terror probes.

FBI agents arrested Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte as they prepared to fly from New York to Egypt and then to Somalia. They made a court appearance in Newark, N.J., on Monday to face charges they wanted to kill Americans by joining a Somali terror group.

Authorities say the undercover officer met the suspects in 2009 and won their trust. He got close enough to them to secretly record their radical rants about fighting a holy war here and abroad.