The FBI arrested four individuals accused of planning a New Year’s Eve terrorist attack in Los Angeles, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday. Authorities discovered the suspects in a Mojave Desert camp where they allegedly tested improvised explosive devices.
Prosecutors charged the four suspects, members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device. Bondi described the group as “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist.”
Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for central California, said investigators disrupted a “detailed, coordinated plot to bomb multiple US companies on New Year’s Eve.”
Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said the group intended to plant “complex pipe bombs” in backpacks at multiple locations. Essayli described the targets as “Amazon-type logistics centers” across Los Angeles County and Orange County.
The four defendants are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. Essayli said they belonged to a radical faction of the Turtle Island Liberation Front called the “Order of the Black Lotus.”
Authorities moved in after the group began obtaining precursor chemicals and other items needed to build bombs.
