Meet Kamran Faridi, a criminal from Karachi who became an FBI secret agent

The American judge presiding over the case against the Pakistani FBI agent for threatening three former colleagues called the verdict as “perhaps the most difficult sentencing” she had ever done. That is how New York Southern District Court’s Judge Cathy Seibel defined the judgment condemning valuable former FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) secret agent Kamran Faridi, 57, to seven years in prison in late 2020. She called evidence on the matter “unlike anything most of us have ever seen”.

The court case revealed some shocking facts about the Karachi-born spy's past. 

The criminal from Karachi turned FBI secret agent, Faridi's ‘career’ had begun toughing it out on Karachi's streets. He progressed to serious crimes before taking up a life of risky sting operation activities for American intelligence departments.

He was in the news in 2018 for facilitating the arrest of Jabir Motiwala, a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim, in London. Karachi-born Faridi migrated to the US in the 90s. He started working with the FBI and secured a green card for himself. He worked for the FBI from for over 20 years from 1995 to 2020.

In February 2020, Faridi reportedly upset his handlers' sensibilities by sending killing warnings to three fellow co-workers, an FBI supervisor, an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) officer, and his former FBI handler. He was arrested while entering the UK in March.

Faridi sent numerous murder threats to his previous FBI superiors on February 17 and 18, 2020, after his job was abruptly terminated. Kamran ‘felt betrayed’ by the FBI, according to the court, because his wife, Kelly, had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and the news of his revocation exacerbated the situation.

The US authorities also told the jury that when he allegedly ordered his wife to notify at least four or five suspects that they were being watched, he was assisting “enemies of the US”. While the court agreed that Faridi hampered law authorities, she also stated that “the value of this defendant's incredible work for the United States is immense” and that “the work that Faridi accomplished for the United States is at the very top to me of valuable source work”. The judge remarked, “even if the (US) government gave it the back of the hand, I don't give it the back of the hand”. Remarkable jobs performed over several years under the most dangerous of conditions, and I believe it is important to consider the worth of it.

Judge concluded by saying, “the benefit that the defendant gave this country is tremendous and the damage he did didn’t wipe it out completely, but it did a tremendous amount of harm”. Kamran Faridi was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.