The FBI thwarted a plot targeting Sunday's UFC event at the White House and has arrested five men, the US justice department said on Tuesday.

Part of the plan involved striking nearby buildings with explosive-laden drones and firing on "high value targets", prosecutors alleged.

One suspect was arrested in Ohio last week, where investigators reviewed encrypted messages involving other alleged conspirators. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit an offence against the US and attempted murder of a federal officer, court documents said.

"Allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold," FBI Director Kash Patel posted on social media on Tuesday about the "multi-state operation".

The suspects were identified as Tycen Proper, the suspect arrested in Ohio, along with Bryan Roa, Michael Thomas, Daniel Eskridge and Abraham Alvarez. They were arrested in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, and California, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement.

By using the drones, the plotters aimed to spark panic and draw the fleeing crowd toward a sniper team, according to the court documents. A "second wave" of attackers was then allegedly supposed to storm the White House gate.

An estimated 4,300 people were present for the invite-only event on the South Lawn - and another 85,000 were able to watch at a nearby fan zone - as 14 mixed martial arts fighters competed in back-to-back fights on Sunday.

The plot was discovered through Proper, a 19-year-old Ohio man, who was communicating with a group online who "expressed ultra-religious and antigovernment sentiments", federal prosecutors said in charges against him that were unsealed on Tuesday.

His mother called local authorities late in the evening on 10 June - just days before the high-profile event - because she was concerned about his large firearms purchases and what she had seen of his online communication with a group that claimed to be made up of former military members and Christian-based.

The group allegedly wanted to "jumpstart" a revolution by shooting at "high-value targets" - identified as wealthy people and politicians - attending the fight, and had specifically discussed "grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions," according to court documents.

During an FBI interview on 11 June, Proper admitted to being part of planning the coordinated attack and that the group began communicating with one another around March 2026 through a TikTok group called "Vanguard of the Old".

For some in the group, those communications moved to Signal, the encrypted messaging app, where plans for the attack were made, according to prosecutors.

The BBC has contacted Proper's lawyer.

At an unrelated briefing on Tuesday, Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn was asked about the thwarted incident and described it as a "serious threat," but did not offer many details as the investigation was ongoing.

He also appeared frustrated by how the investigation was made public, saying: "I'll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office and that's 'Don't choke on your own smoke.'"

"I'll tell you the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning," Quinn said. "I'll tell you that case is ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it."

When asked about the alleged plot during the G7 summit in France on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said: "I haven't heard about it."

Meanwhile, Vice-President JD Vance said in an interview on the Fox News show Fox and Friends that he believed the FBI was informing the public "because the scale of the planned attack is so significant".

On Sunday, as part of the celebration of the nation's 250th anniversary, the White House hosted a series of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) matches, after days of preparation that included erecting a massive arena known as The Claw and other events such as a ceremonial weigh-in of the fighters.

The event coincided with Trump's 80th birthday.

The alleged plot comes some two months after a shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner, where Trump was in attendance and one month after a man was killed by Secret Service agents after opening fire at White House checkpoint.

Political violence broadly is on the rise in the US, Erica Frantz a Michigan State University professor of Political Science, told the BBC.

Targeted violence grew by more than 30% from 2024 to 2025 in the US, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) found.

"There will always be disgruntled members of society who advocate conspiracy theories and extremist views that together don't make much sense," Frantz said when asked about Proper's list of grievances detailed in the court documents. "I am less concerned with the specific motivation, and more concerned with the societal forces pushing people to the fringe."

She added that the problem with "political violence is that it tends to be cyclical, where one act of violence often leads to another one." (BBC)

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