Murat Kurashev is a citizen and national of Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria republic in the northern Caucasus region. According to court records from his 2021-2024 prosecution in the Eastern District of California, Kurashev entered the United States on December 19, 2018, by crossing the U.S. southern border. The crossing occurred during a high surge of family units, and he took advantage of a legal loophole that was forcing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to quickly release them on asylum claims and had drawn a crush of family groups over the border.
As early as February 2020, some 14 months after arriving, Kurashev began sending money overseas through terrorist HTS couriers, and the FBI arrested him in February 2021 following a months-long investigation that began when agents discovered his social media and encrypted phone app communications with a well-known HTS fundraiser and recruiter in Syria.
His crimes and prosecution could have been avoided at the border when Kurashev first crossed because the narrative on his asylum claim was that he was fleeing repeated harassments by Russian counterterrorism intelligence officers who continuously interrogated him about specific attacks and terrorist associations. Learning Kurashev’s narrative at the border would have flagged him for detention, rather than quick release, and spurred routine checks using an established partnership protocol with Russian intelligence services. The resulting information exchange would have showed Kurashev to be fully enthralled with violent extremist ideology and perhaps in communication with HTS at the time.
In turn, these revelations would not only have prevented Kurashev’s later terrorism crimes but also the threat exposure he personally posed as an attack risk inside the United States. Instead, it was the FBI who later discovered his extremism-motivated criminal terrorism activities in social media and later in encrypted phone chat applications with HTS operatives overseas.
The FBI asserted that it discovered Kurashev was wiring money overseas in at least February 2020, about 14 months after his border crossing arrival in the United States. Over the next year, he sent $13,000 earned in California to HTS, which used the money for battle equipment, including an AK-47 rifle and at least one combat motorcycle.
HTS associates overseas sent Kurashev a photo of one motorcycle he purchased bearing his online nickname, “Abus Salim” on the gas tank and reminding the audience that “donating for the purchase of a motorcycle was tantamount to participating in the frontlines of the war in Syria”. Furthermore, the investigating FBI office assessed in court records that “had he not been arrested, he may have become an operational participant in terrorist activities. Kurashev’s behavior firmly places him on the continuum for mobilizing to violence.”
In January 2024, the border-crossing terrorist pleaded guilty to material support for terrorism charges. In April 2024, a judge issued a 12-year prison sentence.