A man who had been plotting a violent attack at a Bad Bunny concert was indicted after a months-long investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
At 58, Mark Adams Prieto, an Arizona native, spent months planning to stage a mass shooting at a Bad Bunny show in Atlanta in May 2024. According to NBC News, Prieto was indicted on charges of firearms trafficking, transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime, and possession of an unregistered firearm.
The federal grand jury indictment came after it was found out that the violent attack that Prieto was planning was to launch to incite a "race war" ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
An FBI spokesperson revealed that Prieto is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service for transport from New Mexico to Arizona.
A source tipped FBI Phoenix that Prieto had expressed a desire to incite the race war. They told the feds that they had spoken to Prieto more than 15 times in the past three years.
Reportedly, the small talks ballooned to political conversations, and eventually, Prieto began giving suspicious and alarming comments, one of which was "advocating for a mass shooting" that targeted Blacks, Jews, and Muslims.
Surveillance on Prieto intensified in 2024 after the investigation started in October 2023. In January 2024, Prieto asked the source and an undercover FBI agent that he wanted them to help him carry out a mass shooting targeting Black people in a rap show in Atlanta.
"When I was a kid that [Georgia] was one of the most conservative states in the country. Why is it not now? Because as the crime got worse in L.A., St. Louis, and all these other cities, all the [N-words] moved out of those [places] and moved to Atlanta. That's why it isn't so great anymore," Prieto allegedly said about his decision to choose Atlanta as the location for his mass shooting.
In March, Prieto told the undercover agent about his plan to conduct the mass shooting on Bad Bunny's show at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on May 14 and 15. He even instructed the agent to wear hoodies to blend in the crowd.
Eventually, Prieto was arrested in New Mexico on May 14 after pushing back the date of his supposed attack.
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