A plan to attack several Los Angeles-area businesses on New Year’s Eve was detailed, dangerous and already in motion, authorities said.
But as four people allegedly tied to a left-wing, antigovernment group gathered last week in the Mojave Desert to make and test several test bombs, FBI officials say, agents were able to foil the terror plot.
“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said at a news conference Monday morning. “We disrupted this terror plot before buildings were demolished or innocent people were killed.”
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The four people were arrested on suspicion of devising a plot that Essayli called “organized, sophisticated and extremely violent.” They all were tied to what officials described as a radical faction of the Turtle Island Liberation Front called Order of the Black Lotus. FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis called the faction “a violent, homegrown, antigovernment group.”
Officials wouldn’t name the businesses or buildings the group allegedly planned to target, but Essayli said they were various “logistic centers” similar to ones that Amazon might have. He said they were located in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
A criminal complaint charged Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, of Los Angeles; Zachary Aaron Page, 32, of Torrance; Dante Gaffield, 24, of Los Angeles; and Tina Lai, 41, of Glendale, with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device. Their attorneys either did not immediately respond to inquiries or declined to comment.
According to the complaint, the group shared a handwritten document called “Operation Midnight Sun.” The plan, authorities said, was to plant backpacks with improvised explosive devices at five locations targeting two U.S. companies to be “simultaneously detonated” at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Federal authorities said members of the group shared the document in November. It detailed assembling “complex pipe bombs,” including instructions to manufacture the devices and “guidance to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back” to the group, the complaint said.
FBI officials continued to track the group until Dec. 12, when the suspects traveled to a location near Twentynine Palms with “bomb-making materials” and plans to construct and test the devices, the complaint said.
There, investigators watched as the group began assembling materials before intervening and arresting the group. FBI officials shared limited footage of that day from a surveillance plane that showed six people setting up tents near two vehicles.
It wasn’t immediately clear who the two additional people were in the video, or whether they were related to the group, but officials said they believe everyone involved in the alleged plan has been arrested.
The FBI searched the site after the arrests and found containers of ingredients that can be used to make bombs, as well as several pieces of PVC pipe and glass bottles, according to court filings. An FBI bomb technician reviewed the materials and said they “could likely be used to build both improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails,” the complaint said.
The alleged plot uncovered by the FBI also detailed potential follow-up attacks after the bombings, which included plans to target federal immigration agents and vehicles with pipe bombs, Essayli said.
Essayli called the arrests an example of “left-wing domestic terror organizations” that pose a threat to the nation and are a key focus for his office.
The Trump administration promised to step up prosecutions of groups that harbor “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” among other ideologies cited in a memo sent by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to federal law enforcement agencies this month. On Monday she called the arrests in Southern California “an incredible effort by our U.S. Attorneys’ Office and the FBI to ensure Americans can live in peace.”
“We will continue to pursue these terror groups and bring them to justice,” Bondi wrote in a statement.
The mission of the Order of the Black Lotus faction wasn’t immediately clear, but a social media page for the Turtle Island Liberation Front describes the group as an anticapitalist and anticolonization group, deriving its name from a Native American term used for the Americas.
The criminal complaint says that the group publicly posts “content that advocates for violence against United States officials” and has advocated against peaceful protest, calling on people to “rise up and fight back.”
One other person was arrested by the FBI’s New Orleans office related to this investigation, but Essayli said that person was not directly tied to the alleged plot. That person’s identity was not shared by authorities. Essayli said the individual was arrested after threatening FBI agents while they were executing a search warrant in this case.
Federal officials said the arrests were made with the support of several local agencies through the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Palm Springs Police Department and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
