Idaho ISIS suspect’s arrest highlights how 'crypto is increasingly popular' with extremist groups, expert says

The FBI’s arrest of an 18-year-old in Idaho who allegedly was planning to attack churches in Coeur d’Alene this past weekend on behalf of ISIS highlights how crypto is becoming "increasingly popular with all extremist groups," a terrorism expert tells FOX Business. 

Alexander Mercurio, prior to his arrest over the weekend in the northern Idaho resort city, had told a confidential source that "he was communicating with an individual online through whom he will donate money via cryptocurrency to the State (ISIS)," an FBI investigator had written in a criminal complaint released by the Justice Department.  

The complaint cited Mercurio as saying he had $8,000 in his savings account and $3,000 in his checking account.  

"Crypto is increasingly popular with all extremist groups... and definitely so with ISIS supporters," Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told FOX Business.  

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"I think over the last few years we have seen a steady stream of cases involving very young and often confused men (in many cases converts, that flirted with various extremist ideologies online only to eventually settle on ISIS' and plan attacks on their behalf)," Vidino added. "It is largely an online phenomenon, quite well monitored by the FBI." 

Vidino also said that religious sites "have increasingly been targets of Americans inspired by ISIS." 

Mercurio is now facing a federal charge of attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization after the FBI says he devised a plan to "incapacitate his father, restrain him using handcuffs, and steal his firearms to use for maximum casualties" in an attack he had been planning to carry out in Coeur d’Alene on Sunday, April 7.  

"The defendant allegedly pledged loyalty to ISIS and sought to attack people attending churches in Idaho, a truly horrific plan which was detected and thwarted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.  

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In a criminal complaint, the FBI said Mercurio’s "attack plan involved using flame-covered weapons, explosives, knives, a machete, a pipe and ultimately firearms" and "grew more precise as he eventually identified the specific church and date on which he planned to attack." 

The FBI investigator also said Mercurio "made a ba’yah statement, pledging his allegiance to ISIS and stating his intention to die while killing others on behalf of ISIS."  

However, on Saturday afternoon, FBI agents carried out a search warrant at Mercurio’s house and took him into custody while allegedly finding items linked to the plot, including a "metal pipe," "a black Smith and Wesson fixed blade knife" and a "machete," according to the complaint.  

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Mercurio now faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted on the federal charge.