A disgruntled Inland Empire employee accused of causing $500 million in damage invoked Luigi Mangione as he filmed himself torching a warehouse as he railed against wages, authorities said.
Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, of Highland, California, is charged with deliberately setting the April 7 inferno that destroyed a 1.2 million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark distribution center in Ontario. He pleaded not guilty Monday to federal and state charges, authorities said.
According to a Department of Justice criminal complaint, Abdulkarim, who worked at the facility through a third-party logistics provider, filmed himself setting multiple pallets of paper goods on fire in the early morning hours.
In the video, he allegedly complained about wages, saying, “If you’re not going to pay us enough to [expletive] live… at least pay us enough not to do this,” according to the DOJ affidavit.
Federal prosecutors say the flames quickly spread, collapsing the roof and leveling the entire facility, which stored household products like Kleenex and Cottonelle.
Investigators allege Abdulkarim later bragged about the destruction in texts and phone calls, including one message that read, “I just cost these [expletive] billions,” while railing against corporate profits and shareholders.
In a separate call, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Abdulkarim compared himself to Mangione — the suspect accused in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“Luigi popped that mutherf—er,” Abdulkarim said, according to the federal complaint, adding “a lot of people are going to understand.”
Fox News contributor and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker told Fox News Digital that Abdulkarim seems to have used similar tactics as Mangione, calling it the “Luigi effect.”
“Luigi garnered a substantial amount of attention and empathy from many because of his ‘cause’ as a justification for his grievance,” she said. “Several are now copying him to one degree or another in an effort to gain that same level of attention and hero status.”
Abdulkarim “believes he was speaking and acting out on behalf of the American people” as he ranted about workers being paid enough to live.
“Chamel was proud to have cost over $1 billion to the company,” Parker said. "It is a troubling time in our society when offenders will go to all lengths no matter how destructive or evil to prove a point for their cause.
“I refer to it as the ‘Luigi effect’ where offenders have learned to focus attention on their grievance through violence due to the sensationalization from online platforms and social media. Law enforcement and specifically the FBI will be digging into his behaviors and what led him down the path to violence. Turning to violence to settle a grievance is never the answer. He chose to carry out these awful crimes, but he will not choose the consequence.”
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Authorities say the fire caused losses far exceeding $10 million, a key threshold that elevates the severity of the charge, while federal officials estimate total damage at roughly $500 million.
Those poor tissues, he violently destroyed them, so now the bourgeoisie cannot mop up their tears with them. Such violence, very destruction.
In all seriousness though, it’s such absurdity. I know this is how capitalism operates, but it will never not be absurd to me watching them compare destruction of property to destruction of life. Were he destroying vital food stores, you could make an argument that it is, by extension, violence against people. But a warehouse of paper goods? Laughable to frame it that way. He hit the bourgeoisie where they hurt (the pocketbook) without directly attacking anyone. But they’ll call it violence because to them, hurting their profits is tantamount to striking them.
People forget that the FBI does not just consider the killing of people terrorism, but also the destruction of property. This is why the feds call direct action environmental groups, “eco-terrorists” even though there do not go around killing people.