The FBI arrested a California man yesterday for allegedly mailing packages with sugar packets labeled as anthrax, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 14).
(Oct. 30) -
Marc Keyser, of Sacramento, Calif., is accused of mailing sugar packets labeled as anthrax in an apparent effort to warn of the dangers of bioterrorism (Photo from Keyser Web site).
The packages contained a compact disc with the label “Anthrax: Shock and Awe Terror” and included a sugar packet labeled “Anthrax sample” and displaying a biohazard symbol.
Authorities charged 66-year-old Marc Keyser of Sacramento with three federal counts of sending a hoax letter, AP reported. FBI Special Agent Steve Dupre said Keyser had mailed more than 120 of the packages, some of which still might not have been delivered or opened. None of the packages examined to date have contained hazardous materials, according to the FBI.
Dupre said the Keyser mailings did not appear to be related to a spate of recent suspicious powder mailings to financial institutions (see GSN, Oct. 23).
Recipients of the reported Keyser packages included the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Also receiving the mailing were the Modesto office of U.S. Representative George Radanovich (R-Calif.) and a Sacramento McDonald’s restaurant, according to AP.
The FBI initiated its investigation Monday after one of the packages arrived at The Atlantic magazine in Washington, AP reported (Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press/Monterey County Herald, Oct. 30).
After an Atlantic intern opened the package — marked with Keyser’s return mailing address, a Web site address and a phone number — supervisors assessed that the letter appeared to be a poorly crafted publicity effort for a documentary film.
Nevertheless, they called authorities and soon a Joint Terrorism Task Force was on the scene, including representatives from the FBI, the Homeland Security Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and local fire and police officials.
Asked if the federal response was perhaps excessive, one FBI agent at the scene quipped, “If you think this is disproportionate, you should see when we really overreact.”
Two personnel in hazardous material protection suits removed the package and its contents. No Atlantic staffers were tested for exposure to chemical or biological materials, nor was anyone asked to leave the offices in the Watergate office complex.
“Upon examining the letter and the application of field tests, it was determined that there were no direct threats made and no harmful contents to the letter, in addition to no nexus to terrorism,” FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman told Global Security Newswire. Nevertheless, “any mailing that even threatens to have a biohazard or some sort of chemical, that's a federal offense,” she added.
As a precautionary move, the office building temporarily shut down its air-conditioning and ventilation system, a maintenance worker said.
A History of Mailings
Keyser conducted a similar mailing to a local weekly paper in Sacramento in January 2007.
In that case, he mailed what appeared to be a CD book and an aerosol can labeled “anthrax” with a biohazard symbol. An accompanying letter said, “Don’t think terrorism’s dead just because Osama bin Laden is cornered somewhere in Afghanistan,” according to a report on the incident by the recipient, the Sacramento News & Review.
Keyser later said he was trying only to raise awareness of bioterror threats.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding. I sent you the dummy spray of anthrax to alert you to the danger of an anthrax terror attack in Los Angeles at McDonald’s and Wal-Marts in shopping centers that triggers mass hysteria in a population of 10,000 unvaccinated commuters in rush hour traffic turning L.A. into a death trap which triggers mass panic in every city in America (including Sacramento) sending 290,000 million unvaccinated inhabitants in rush hour traffic to the nearest hospital and turns cities into death traps, crashing the stock market, collapsing the economy — not to trigger mass hysteria in your office,” he wrote in an e-mail to the News & Review.
“The FBI showed up at my door and said it caused a bit of a scare. We had a nice chat. They and their families are not vaccinated. But they carry guns,” he added.
The News & Review had written a 2002 story about Keyser when he was raising concerns about the safety of the Sacramento-area public water supplies. Two years later, a Sacramento television station reported that Keyser canvassed Sacramento streets seeking funds to promote antiterrorist training for police and fire departments.
In 1998, the San Francisco Examiner reported that Keyser had mailed 4,000 bogus “billing” statements to Californians as part of a confusing program to promote AIDS awareness (Webb/Grossman, Global Security Newswire, Oct. 30).