FBI discounts terror link in US chlorine thefts

10 May 2007 18:29  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Thursday there is nothing to indicate a terrorist link to the theft of chlorine cylinders in California earlier this year.

 

Late last month the House Homeland Security Committee raised an alarm about three 150-pound chlorine cylinders stolen in two incidents in February and April this year from the same water treatment facility in California. 

 

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (Democrat-Mississippi) and other members of Congress asked the Department of Homeland Security to launch an urgent inquiry into the thefts and two other reports of attempted chlorine theft and to report back to the committee by the end of May.  The department said the issue was a matter for the FBI.

 

FBI special agent and spokesman Bill Carter said the bureau “often gets reports of stolen chemicals, and they are very thoroughly investigated”.

 

“In most of theses cases it is simply criminal activity,” Carter said, “with criminals stealing a variety of chemicals and then selling them on the market.”  However, he added, “we also want to make sure that there is not a terrorist nexus to that sort of activity”.

 

Regarding the west coast chlorine thefts identified by Congressman Thompson, Carter said:  “We are not aware of anything specific at this time that would lead us to believe that those California thefts are terrorist related.”

 

Carter said there are cargo thefts across the country all the time involving chemicals and other products.  “Thieves will steal anything,” he noted.

 

Chlorine industry officials said earlier that they believe the California chlorine thefts were isolated incidents and there appears to be no widespread pattern of chlorine cargo diversions.  Even so, the Chlorine Institute issued a security alert to chlorine producers and commercial users.

 

The potential for a terrorists using chlorine has been identified by the Department of Homeland Security as one among several possible attack scenarios for which local emergency response teams should be prepared.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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