New Year’s Eve terror plot on Los Angeles area sites foiled by FBI

(KTLA Los Angeles and Desert Sun) — An “intense” investigation by multiple agencies led to the thwarting of a terrorist attack plot targeting multiple locations in Southern California, federal officials announced Monday.

Federal authorities have arrested four alleged members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, a far-left extremist group accused of planning coordinated bombings across Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve…. Attorney General Pam Bondi identified the group as “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government and anti-capitalist.”

The suspects were taken into custody on Friday in Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert, where investigators say they were preparing to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the New Year’s Eve attacks on five separate locations. Each faces charges of conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.

They are, according to the FBI:

• Audrey Carroll, 30
• Zachary Aaron Page, 32
• Dante Anthony-Gaffield, 24
• Tina Lai, 41

Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California alleged that the four are “radical anti-government members” of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF). According to Essayli, the four people are also members of a more radical faction of the group called the Order of the Black Lotus. Carroll is alleged to have organized the more radical offshoot of the Turtle Island group, a sect known as the “Order of the Black Lotus.”

The name “Turtle Island” refers to an Indigenous term for North America, and the group’s social media posts have called for “Free Turtle Island” and independence for regions such as Palestine, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

Carroll is also alleged to have created a “detailed bombing plot to use explosive devices” to attack five or more locations this upcoming New Year’s Eve, Essayli said. She and co-defendant Page “led the effort to build the bombs and recruit others to join their plot.”

Afterward, the group planned to attack federal immigration agents and their vehicles with pipe bombs beginning in January or February 2026 — in the hopes the blasts “would take some of them out and scare the rest of them,” according to the criminal complaint.

The New Year’s Eve plot, dubbed “Operation Midnight Sun,” consisted of planting backpacks stuffed with bombs at two companies, according to a handwritten plan discovered by investigators.

Search warrants also found signs declaring “Death to America,” “Death to ICE” and “Long live Turtle Island and Palestine,” officials announced Monday.

Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office Akil Davis said the four were arrested near Twentynine Palms (which is in the Mojave Desert) on Friday “while they planned and rehearsed their attack.”

“The subjects arrested envisioned planting backpacks with improvised explosive devices to be detonated at multiple locations in Southern California targeting U.S. companies,” Davis continued. “These bombs were to blow up at the same time at midnight this New Year’s Eve.”

Video was shown at the press conference that depicted the group going to the desert on Dec. 12 and testing their explosive devices.

“They had precursor chemicals there and they were going to create these bombs in the desert,” Davis explained. “What they were starting to do is [assemble] their chemicals and wares and components.”

The footage was captured by a surveillance plane, Davis added, and shortly after, the four were arrested without incident by the Los Angeles-based SWAT Team and the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team.

Officials did not disclose the names of the companies that were allegedly being targeted by the group; however, U.S. Attorney Essayli said there were at least five “Amazon-type logistics centers” in Orange County and Los Angeles County.

“They were willing and wanting to do more if they could recruit more members to their radical efforts,” he told reporters.

The four arrested – Carroll, Page, Gaffield and Lai – are believed to be the specific individuals behind the New Year’s Eve plot, Essayli added, but more search warrants were carried out and evidence is still being reviewed.

“As we review that evidence, if we determine there were any other individuals who knew about this or provided any assistance, we will obviously charge them as well,” Essayli said.

Essayli elaborated that the person arrested in New Orleans was “not directly tied” to the New Year’s Eve plot; however, he “posed a great threat” to agents serving a search warrant related to the investigation and thus he was taken into custody.

The investigation and arrests were part of the FBI’s “Operation Verdant Force.”

Compiled from articles published at KTLA5 by Will Conybear and Desert Sun by James Ward and Paris Barraza on Dec. 15, with NY Post. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced without permission.