Four charged with New Year's Eve plot to bomb multiple targets in California

Four people have been charged with plotting New Year's Eve bomb attacks in California.

Federal authorities in the US said the four are allegedly part of an extremist group which is suspected of planning the attacks in southern California.

The plot consisted of planting explosive devices at five locations targeting two US companies at midnight on New Year's Eve in the Los Angeles area.

The suspects were arrested last week in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of Los Angeles.

They are said to be members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian, anti-government and anti-capitalist group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front, the complaint said.

As well as the alleged plan against the two companies, the group also planned to target Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and vehicles, attorney general Pam Bondi said.

The four defendants named in the complaint are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, Dante Gaffield, 24 and Tina Lai, 41.

All four are from the Los Angeles area, according to first assistant US attorney Bill Essayli.

The alleged plot

According to a sworn statement in support of the complaint, Carroll showed an eight-page handwritten document to a paid confidential source in November, which described a bomb plot.

The document was titled "Operation Midnight Sun".

Essayli said one of the suspects created a detailed plan that "included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs (improvised explosive devices)… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles."

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Carroll and Page are then alleged to have recruited the other two defendants to help them carry out the plan which included acquiring bomb-making materials before constructing and performing test detonations.

Under the plan, the defendants would supposedly have travelled to a remote location in the Mojave Desert on 12 December to construct and detonate their test explosive devices, the sworn statement alleges.

Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.

The FBI said agents intervened before the defendants could complete their work to assemble a functional explosive device.

(c) Sky News 2025: Four charged with New Year's Eve plot to bomb multiple targets in California