Blerim Skoro spent years inside federal prisons passing intelligence on terrorists to the FBI. He infiltrated al Qaeda from the Balkans. He helped put members of some of the most dangerous extremist networks in the United States behind bars. Now Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to send him back to Kosovo, where he says people want him dead.
ICE agents arrested Skoro, 55, earlier this month outside an immigration office in New Jersey where he was renewing his paperwork, according to a report by CBS News. He is currently being held at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey. His lawyers have filed in federal court to halt his deportation, arguing that Skoro was promised U.S. residency after years of work as a CIA agent.
Skoro is a Kosovo-born father of three. He has an American wife and has lived in Staten Island, New York, working as a cab driver. In 2022, he was granted a deferral of removal because of the risk that he could be captured and tortured by terrorists if returned to Kosovo. His lawyers say that ruling came in part because of his help securing arrests of members of al Qaeda, al Shabaab, and Hezbollah.
His path into the intelligence world began in 2000, when he was arrested for drug trafficking. FBI documents show he was struggling to support his children and refugee parents after the family fled the Kosovo conflict in the 1990s. He was caught transporting heroin overseas for an Albanian criminal gang. Raised a Muslim, he was welcomed by Islamic radicals while serving his sentence at a Manhattan prison. After the September 11 attacks, he says the CIA approached him to exploit that connection.
While incarcerated at FCI Allenwood in Pennsylvania between 2002 and 2006, Skoro says he gathered intelligence for the FBI on several terrorism cases. These included Faysal Galab of the Lackawanna Six, which federal agents described as America's first homegrown terrorist sleeper cell, and Randall "Ismail" Royer of the Virginia jihad network, who was convicted of organizing violence against U.S. troops overseas. Heavily redacted FBI records from 2004, obtained by CBS News, list Skoro as an informant in an investigation targeting Osama bin Laden. The records describe him at times providing information that was both actionable and reliable, including details of a Syrian training camp.
Skoro believed he would receive a reduced sentence for his cooperation. Instead, he was deported to Kosovo in 2007. He claims the CIA told him to infiltrate al Qaeda from the Balkans. He says he worked undercover in the terrorist group from 2007 to 2009, only returning to the United States in 2014.
Speaking by phone from the Elizabeth Detention Center, Skoro told CBS News: "I never thought they were going to betray me like this." He added: "Please, if I die, I should die in this country so my kids can bury me."
His federal court case remains pending. No hearing date has been publicly announced.
