French Prosecutors Indict Four Suspects in Foiled Bank of America Bomb Attack

French counterterrorism prosecutors formally opened a judicial investigation on Wednesday into a foiled bomb attack on the Paris headquarters of Bank of America, indicting four suspects — including three minors — and linking the plot to a pro-Iranian group that had previously claimed attacks against Jewish communities across Europe. The device, discovered in the early hours of March 28 outside the bank's offices on rue La Boétie in Paris's 8th arrondissement, was found to be the most powerful pyrotechnic device of its kind ever identified in France, according to the Paris police laboratory.

Bomb powerful enough to produce a large fireball The homemade explosive device consisted of a five-litre petrol canister taped to a large pyrotechnic charge containing a 650 (grams) — active explosive material in the device's cardboard cylinder cylinder with a fuse. The Paris police laboratory concluded that the device's effects were closer to those of an explosive than a consumer firecracker, and that it could have generated a large fireball several metres in diameter and spread a significant fire. Police officers conducting surveillance outside the bank spotted two individuals near the entrance at approximately 3:30 a.m. and arrested a 17-year-old at the scene in the act of placing the device and preparing to ignite it with a lighter. In the days that followed, two 16-year-old suspects and one adult were also arrested. A fifth person was released without charge for lack of sufficient evidence. The Pnat requested the indictment and pre-trial detention of all four remaining suspects on charges including terrorist criminal conspiracy, manufacture, possession and transport of an explosive device, and attempted destruction in connection with a terrorist enterprise.

Adult suspect recruited teenagers via Snapchat for up to 1,000 euros The adult suspect, identified as Wakil D., 21 years old, was previously convicted in 2025 for drug trafficking and is suspected of acting as an intermediary between the plot's masterminds and the three minors. According to the prosecutor's office, investigators established through CCTV footage, phone data and police interviews that Wakil D. recruited the three teenagers between the nights of March 26 and 27, paying them between 500 and 1,000 euros to plant the device, light it and film the scene. Wakil D. himself told investigators he had been contacted via Snapchat by an intermediary who presented the operation as personal revenge, and that the device was delivered to his home by an unknown person. The three minors, all with clean criminal records, denied any terrorist intent, though they acknowledged understanding that the target was not a residential building. All four suspects denied terrorist motivation at this stage of proceedings. Investigators said their priority is now to identify the masterminds behind the attack.

Pro-Iranian group HAYI named as likely organiser behind European attacks The Pnat said the attack "appears likely linked" to the pro-Iranian group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya, known as HAYI, though stressed this had not yet been formally established at the current stage of proceedings. On March 23, five days before the attempted attack, police services were informed of a propaganda video posted on social media by HAYI specifically naming Bank of America's Paris headquarters as a target and calling for actions against Jewish interests and communities in France and Europe. The group has also claimed responsibility for attacks against Jewish communities in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, including an attack in London last week in which four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on fire. London counterterrorism police announced three additional arrests on Wednesday in connection with the ambulance attack. French anti-terrorism prosecutors said they were working with counterparts in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands on what they described as HAYI-linked attacks across Europe in March. Laurent Nuñez, the prefect of police of Paris serving as Interior Minister, stated on the franceinfo radio station that the foiled attack had a "link" with the war in the Middle East, adding that Iran was capable of triggering such actions through intermediaries — "proxies" recruited in Europe — when tensions with Iran are elevated. The Iranian embassy in France declined to comment on Nuñez's remarks over the weekend and did not immediately respond to a subsequent request for comment from Reuters.

„We know that when there are tensions with Iran, they are capable of triggering this type of action” — Laurent Nuñez via France 24

France has faced a series of Islamist-inspired attacks over the past decade, and its counterterrorism architecture was significantly restructured with the creation of the Pnat in 2019, centralising prosecution of terrorism cases at the national level. The current investigation unfolds against the backdrop of the US-Israel military campaign against Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, following which Ali Khamenei was killed in initial strikes and his son Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader in March 2026. French authorities have previously warned that heightened tensions in the Middle East increase the risk of proxy-driven attacks on European soil.

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