An 18-year-old man was arrested at gunpoint Tuesday in Richfield, Minnesota, as he moved into an arranged meeting to buy an AK-47-style rifle for $600, authorities said. Federal investigators say Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud had been planning an attack at the Mall of America and had tied that plan to the Hmong Arts Celebration on Oct. 24.
The arrest became public Wednesday when a federal criminal complaint was filed, laying out a case that reached far beyond one gun deal. In the complaint, a confidential human source is said to have exchanged hundreds of bi-directional messages with Mohamud from December 2024 until Tuesday, giving investigators a line into what they describe as a widening threat centered on the Mall of America in Bloomington.
According to the filing, Mohamud told the source that he wanted to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, but he later said he did not have enough money to make the trip. He allegedly shifted from that plan to violence in the United States, saying he would act “for the sake of Allah only,” and later described the mall as a target “because it’s owned by Jewish.” He also told the source he was inspired in part by last year’s deadly attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.
The complaint says Mohamud then narrowed his focus to the mall event. Last month, he told the source he wanted to strike during the Hmong Arts Celebration because “it will be a lot of people,” and he allegedly wrote, “I just walk in and shoot,” while also saying he had been watching video of the 2016 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Investigators say he considered other possible targets in Minnesota, including Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee, and said he might buy two pistols online first.
The gun-buying meeting ended with Mohamud arrested and the weapon left behind, according to the filing. Authorities say he left an undercover employee’s vehicle with a Norinco AK-47 assault rifle, model Mac-90 Sporter, four magazines and about 200 live rounds of 7.62x39-caliber ammunition, and that he had also posted a video on Discord last month in which he allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS. The complaint says he knowingly received a firearm and ammunition knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, they would be used to commit a felony and a federal crime of terrorism, including material support for a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The FBI contacted Mohamud’s parents in May 2025, but the case did not become public until the complaint was filed Wednesday. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen and FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Dotson were scheduled to hold a news conference at noon Wednesday, and the filing leaves prosecutors with a central question now that the arrest is done: how much of the alleged plot they can prove through the messages, the gun meeting and the digital trail they say Mohamud left behind.
