[imagesource: U.S. District Court for the Central District of California]

There’s hardly anything more American than celebrating the 4th of July by shooting a R5.6 million Italian supercar with an arsenal of fireworks loaded on a chopper  – all for your 1 million YouTube subscribers.

The 11-minute video, titled Destroying a Lamborghini With Fireworks and set to the song ‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus, is now part of a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday evening in a Los Angeles federal court.

The online influencer Suk Min ‘Alex’ Choi is now facing up to 20 years in prison over the “crazy stupid” 2023 stunt that “appears to be a live-action version of a fictionalised videogame scene,” per the complaint.  The video saw Choi press a “fire missiles” button while two women were in the helicopter, releasing fireworks at the speeding Lamborghini.

24-year-old Alex Choi was arrested on Wednesday and charged with causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.

Despite thoroughly p*ssing off the FAA, the Department of Transportation Inspector General’s Office, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the problem is that the stunt was pulled off on federal land, per the Daily Beast.

Investigators believe the stunt was filmed in the El Mirage Dry Lakebed in San Bernardino County, California, without permits. He also purchased the fireworks in Nevada because they were illegal in California.

“[T]hese fireworks are expensive and I plan on letting them all off at the same time, to make a crazy, hectic, firework show,” Choi wrote, according to the complaint. “Choi wrote that the cost break down [sic] would be $2100 for the helicopter (700 per hour x3) and $500-700 for the fireworks.”

In addition to Choi’s serious legal jeopardy, the stunt also led the FAA to revoke the helicopter pilot’s license for flying beneath the minimum altitudes required by law, failing to display the chopper’s “N” number, creating a hazard to persons or property, and “operating the helicopter in a manner that was careless or reckless so as to endanger the life or property of another,” the complaint states.

The first three minutes of the video, which has been removed from YouTube, consists of “various dramatic action scenes,” the complaint states. “A female and male acting as police officers discuss going to find an individual who is speeding. The female is then shown getting into a helicopter. In subsequent clips, two females are seen onboard a helicopter, while the helicopter is airborne, and the females are holding and shooting fireworks out of the helicopter onto and towards a Lamborghini sportscar driving on the ground.”

The video then transitions into a “behind-the-scenes” segment, showing viewers how the footage actually came together.

Here is a snippet of the wild video that ended in federal charges:

[sources:independent&dailybeast]