By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Carlos T. Fernandez, the legendary FBI agent who spent most of his career fighting terrorism, is retiring after 21 years.
The 50-year-old agent in charge of New York’s counterterrorism division has accepted a job with media giant Viacom, where he’ll lead their global security at their Times Square headquarters, PageSix.com reports.
During his illustrious FBI career that began in 1996, Fernandez investigated terrorism in Yemen after the USS Cole bombing, in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and in Libya after Benghazi.
New York City police will miss Fernandez.
“There’s been no better collaborator (with the NYPD) than Carlos, and he spent his entire career protecting New York City from acts of terrorism,” NYPD Assistant Commissioner J. Peter Donald told Page Six. “We’ll miss him — he’s the best.”
He’ll also be missed by colleagues.
“Carlos is a great American, a great agent and a great friend,” Jeffrey Ringel, who worked with Fernandez at the FBI for 19 years, said. “His retirement is a big loss for New York, but his legacy will live on at the FBI.”
Page Six wrote:
He became a supervisor within the Counterterrorism Division of the New York Field Office in 2010, and in 2015 he became the Special Agent-in-Charge overseeing the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Keeping New Yorkers safe, his division has thwarted attacks such as a Times Square massacre plotted by ISIS sympathizer Mohamed Rafik Naji, who intended to drive a garbage truck into a crowd before his 2016 arrest. They also foiled a Hezbollah strike with the 2017 arrest of Ali Kourani, who cased JFK for an attack. Last week, Bronx man Saddam Mohamed Raishani was arrested for trying to travel to Syria to join ISIS.
