Thwarted NYE bombers kept ‘terrorist diary,’ aimed to put phones in concrete, drop in water, per feds

The accused members of Turtle Island Liberation Front, who planned to bomb Los Angeles and New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, according to the federal government, were unknowingly interacting with both an undercover FBI employee and a “confidential human source” working with the feds, according to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The complaint, penned by an FBI agent whose name is redacted and who has worked at the bureau for nearly a year and a half, states that the “confidential human source,” who paid and has no criminal history and who is “validated and vetted,” has been a “reliable” font of information since August 2021.

Information provided by the undercover agent and the source, detailed in the complaint, alleged that one of the accused terrorists claimed to have a “notebook where I wrote down multiple plans that never happened or got delayed, so it’s like my terrorist diary.”

“Lmaooooo,” the person allegedly stated, using an expression that suggests amusement. “I have to get rid of that.”

“What we’re doing will be considered a terrorist act,” another allegedly said.

Per the complaint, the would-be bombers identified five sites to target and five other “blank slots,” captioned with “add more if enough comrades.”

“The target locations were identified as property and facilities operated by two separate companies that are used or engaged in activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce,” the complaint alleges.

The FBI agent who penned the complaint wrote that the “complex pipe bombs,” which the conspirators allegedly planned to deploy, refer to “multiple explosive devices affixed to one another to make a larger explosive device.”

The agent also alleged that the would-be bombers intended to go to great lengths to hide their identities, including using a “burner” phone that they would get rid of after the attacks by “submerging it in a concrete brick after destroying the SIM and then disposing of the brick in a body of water.”

The conspirators planned the attacks for New Year’s Eve because “fireworks will be going off at this time, so explosions will be less likely to be noticed as immediately as any normal day,” per the complaint.

They also were advised, per the complaint, to wear black clothing atop gray, casual clothing and to wear masks to hide their identity and “project a sense of unity,” the agent alleged. They were also told to “keep hair very tightly concealed and to wear gloves for the purpose of avoidance of leaving behind DNA,” according to the complaint.

An organizer also told the co-conspirators to “leave their personal devices at home and to make sure the devices were set up to stream a long movie during the time of the attacks, so as to craft an alibi or ‘plausible deniability’ by having it appear as though the actor was actively using their devices,” the complaint alleges.

Another way that they were advised to avoid detection was to put a “small pebble” in their shoes to “alter natural gait to obfuscate their identification,” and they were told to use only cash to buy materials for pipe bombs and to purchase “in small quantities to avoid suspicion” and to split purchases among the team, per the complaint.

At a site where they are accused of testing bombs, the co-conspirators allegedly were told to put their phones in “a small cardboard box completely sealed with aluminum,” only having two burner phones for emergencies at the site, according to the complaint.

The complaint also states that they used shoelaces for fuses, were advised to use an open-source map program to avoid “corporate tracking” and that when one accused conspirator allegedly bought pistol primers, the person wore “a medical mask, gloves, ball cap and long sleeve shirt” to avoid recognition.

© JNS