Federal law enforcement agencies have turned to a variety of techniques and surveillance capabilities to identify people who have allegedly set fire to Tesla vehicles and property, including automatic license plate readers and social media crawling, according to newly unsealed court records obtained by 404 Media.The documents come from cases that Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced on Thursday. The charges also come as sentiment towards Tesla and Elon Musk is at an all time low. People have participated in regular, and largely non-violent, Tesla Takedown protests, and there have been multiple acts of vandalism around the country, which has captured the attention of Musk, Bondi, and Donald Trump, who are now all claiming that vandalizing Teslas will be treated as an act of domestic terrorism. On Monday 404 Media reported that a website called Dogequest had doxed some Tesla owners, and that the website included a Molotov cocktail as its cursor.Each of the arrests announced by Bondi happened earlier this month or last month, and new details about them are now available in court documents obtained by 404 Media. Details about the surveillance techniques used to identify the alleged vandals show that police used a combination of automatic license plate readers and social media monitoring to investigate two of the crimes. In the third, the suspect was identified based on a combination of license plate records and fingerprints left on a Molotov cocktail bottle.The first case relates to a March 7 arson of a set of Tesla charging stations in South Carolina. Witnesses said that a man used red spray to write Fuck Trump and Long Live Ukraine in a Tesla charging station parking spot, according to court records. The male then lit beer bottles on fire and threw them at the charging stations, with some setting on fire, the documents say.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) collected evidence from the scene, including a charred piece of fabric suspected to be a wick and shards of glass bottle, the documents continue. Investigators reviewed surveillance video from a nearby restaurant and saw a white male in a grey sweater, black facemask, black shorts, and black shoes. During the footage, the man was carrying a green item, the documents say.ATF investigators then reviewed more footage from the North Charleston Police Department (NCPD). In that clip, the man was not holding the green item. Investigators then found it: a cardboard bottle carrier for Holland 1839 beer. More footage showed the man getting into a white van and leaving the area, a Tanger Outlet mall, the court documents say.Investigators then contacted the outlet malls security who said they had access to license plate reader (LPR) technology. LPR cameras are typically set up in a fixed area which continuously monitor which vehicles drive by and record their license plates. These systems are run by both government agencies and private businesses, and some surveillance contractors sell access to such data. The LPR footage identified the vehicle as a white 2006 Chrysler Town and Country van with South Carolina license plate 331ANL, according to the court documents.Investigators then queried the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles to find who the vehicle was registered to. That led to the name Clarke-Pounder. The Tanger Outlet mall security consultants were then also able to pull a photograph of the man without his mask from their surveillance cameras, the documents say.Authorities then performed open source research, including social media posts and app usage. The ATF says it obtained a phone number for Clarke-Pounder and found it was registered to a mobile payment application. That query provided the name Daniel Clarke-Pounder.Do you know anything else about these cases or others? We would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message Jason securely on Signal at jason.404. You can Signal Joseph at +44 20 8133 5190Investigators then searched for that name on another mobile payment app and reviewed the payments in that account. Some of those mentioned the user paying their rent, the document says. That led to an apartment address. To confirm it, authorities reviewed Clarke-Pounders Instagram and found a post in which he said Havent posted in 3 years whoops. Well Im a mechanic now, I live on James island with two of the best roommates and Im enjoying life see yall in another 5 years.Authorities then obtained search warrants for Clarke-Pounders home and vehicle. They found what appears to be the same sweatshirt worn by the man in the surveillance footage and a receipt for Holland Lager 1839.A screenshot of one of the court records.Within the bedroom, SAs located a purple composition notebook on a desk next to the bed. The notebook contained a three (3) page handwritten statement, which asserted anti-government believes [sic] and statements opposed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the documents say.In another case in Oregon, police identified Adam Lansky through a mix of license plate lookups and fingerprints left on wine bottles used for Molotov cocktails. Lansky allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at Cybertrucks at a Tesla dealership in Salem on January 20 and allegedly shot at the same dealership on February 19 with a suppressed semi-automatic rifle.The federal affidavit claims that Lansky caused $500,000 worth of damage at the Tesla dealership by damaging a total of seven Teslas, with one vehicle destroyed. Screenshots of surveillance footage included in the affidavit shows a person wearing all black, a hood, and a mask holding a lit Molotov cocktail and an AR-15 style rifle with a suppressor.A section of the document reads:A review of the security footage showed the Subject traveling on foot from the east of the Tesla Center along Mission Street Southeast, pulling a black collapsible wagon. The Subject stopped behind the Tesla sign in front of the Tesla Center before moving toward the building. From there, the Subject can be seen lighting a Molotov Cocktail-style device and throwing it at a Tesla Cybertruck parked in front of the Tesla Center. The device bounces off the truck and does not ignite. The Subject then moves toward the showroom building. The Subject then lights two devices, throws one at the building and another at a red Tesla SUV parked in front of the showroom. The device bounces off the vehicle and breaks on the sidewalk. The Subject moves in between the Tesla SUV and showroom and lights another device and throws it to the north of the Subjects position. At this point in the security footage, the Subject sees the eyewitness driving away, and the Subject drops the ignited device in the Subjects hands and brandishes what appears to be an AR-15 style rifle with a suppressor and points it toward the eyewitness as the eyewitness drives away. The dropped device breaks near the Subject and ignites, and the Subject then takes his wagon and moves north to the front of the showroom. The Subject then throws a rock at the showroom window, shattering the glass and then throws an ignited device into the showroom. The Subject then throws two more ignited devices at two vehicles and takes off running toward the fence located to the west of the Tesla Center.In a third case, an agent with the ATF investigated a widely-reported case in Loveland, Colorado, where a woman named Lucy Nelson is accused of spray painting NAZI and FUCK MUSK on a Tesla dealership sign, vandalizing several vehicles, and throwing a Molotov cocktail at a cybertruck over the course of several days in late January and early February. An affidavit includes screen grabs of surveillance footage of a person wearing all black, a hoot, and a mask walking through the Tesla dealership parking lot, and screen grabs of fires in the lot. The affidavit states that Nelson was identified because surveillance footage captured a Toyota Prius leaving a nearby parking lot, and a Flock automated LPR captured its license plate and showed it was registered to Nelson. Flock is a particular brand of LPR that has spread across the U.S., and is often purchased by individual communities.Nelsons Prius was later flagged by a license plate reader as being mobile, and police followed her to the Tesla dealership.On February 24, 2025, Loveland Police Department advised that a license plate reader alerted investigators that the Toyota Prius registered to [Lucy] Nelson was mobile, and surveillance was established. Nelson was followed by investigators to the area of the Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colorado where Nelson was observed parking the Prius and walking toward the business wearing the same clothing as was seen on the suspect during the February 7th incident. Nelson was observed by law enforcement wearing a satchel similar to the incident on February 7th. After walking around near the Tesla dealership, Nelson walked back to the Prius vehicle. Before departing in the vehicle, LPD officers arrested Nelson after investigators observed the described activity, the document says.Tesla claimed to investigators that Nelson allegedly caused $5 million worth of damage to vehicles at the dealership.The Department of Justices announcement about the cases said that each defendant, if convicted, faces a minimum penalty of five years and up to 20 years in prison.