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Escondido bomb-maker had largest stash of home-made explosives ever found in U.S.

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Liberty Belle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:13 AM
Original message
Escondido bomb-maker had largest stash of home-made explosives ever found in U.S.
Source: East County Magazine


Suspect also accused of bank robberies; Bomb-maker Jakubec formerly ran a contracting business in Ramona



November 22, 2010 (Escondido)—George Djura Jakubec, 54, pled not guilty today to 28 criminal counts. He is accused of possessing destructive explosive devices and the ingredients to make them, as well as robbing two local banks.


Deputy District Attorney Terri Perez told Judge Marshall Hockett that the suspect’s home was “a bomb factory” containing “the largest quantity of these types of homemade explosives at one place in the United States.” Those materials pose “a huge danger to officers and the public,” she said. In addition to bombs and explosive materials, authorities found multiple detonators, grenades and shrapnel. Authorities have not disclosed what the intended target of the bombs may have been, nor whether Jakobec was acting alone or as part of an organization.

<snip>

After a gardener was injured in an explosion in the home’s backyard last week, investigators with the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and San Diego County Sheriff’s Department searched the premises. They discovered mason jars containing over nine pounds of HMTD, an explosive commonly used by suicide bombers and implicated in the foiled Millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles Airport.

Today, prosecutors revealed, additional explosives known as ETN and PETN were also found. ETN is often mixed with other explosives and is highly volatile and sensitive to friction. Mixed with plasciticizers, PETN becomes a plastic explosive. It is one of the most powerful explosives in the world. PETN was used by Al Qaeda shoe bomber Richard Reid and the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. In Berlin, Germany PETN collapsed the Maison de France house in 1983. Last month, printer cartridges containing PETN and intended to be loaded on flights bound for the U.S. were discovered.

Read more: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/4852



This should be headline news nationwide. Why isn't it?

The suspect is from Serbia. He's made recent trips to Mexico, according to the prosecutor. He's a software engineer and former building contractor who's also pled guilty to commercial burglary in the past. Quite a diverse resume.

If anyone has more info on this guy please pm me.

It's ironic that we've had two protests against the porno-scanners here in San Diego (the guy who stripped to his undies, and the guy who videotaped TSA groping him and refused to board the plane) and then this guy with enough explosives to take down airliners turns up in our backyard. All scary and bound to fuel to pro-groping and naked scanning arguments.

It will be very interesting to find out what this guy planned to do with all those explosives--and if he had help. Hard to believe he was a lone nut with this much stuff.
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somone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:22 AM
Response to Original message
1. Maybe he had customers lined up
to buy what he was making. Mexican drug cartels?
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haele Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 06:32 PM
Response to Reply #1
20. Aryan brotherhood is still pretty big in that area.
Along with some of the more radical "Minuteman" types and quite a few biker gangs that are into drug and gun-running. There's a lot of open wilderness out past Valley Center and in amongst the canyons that the less law-abiding and extremely "private" individuals camp out or live.
He could have been making it for them.
Or he could have been planning a "going out with a bang" revenge on his former employer. It's been a couple years, but San Diego is where the term "going Postal" came from. There's been a lot of pretty spectacular "disgruntled former employee" workplace and general public violence that has occurred in the past 30 years I've lived here.

Haele
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jberryhill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:22 AM
Response to Original message
2. Was he the "terrorist type"

54 year old European?
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bettyellen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:40 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. or the recently unemployed and divorced type?
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:49 AM
Response to Reply #6
9. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
bettyellen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:53 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. they scare the hell out of me!
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jberryhill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:57 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Y'know, they do spend a lot of time out in the sun

IMHO there is something in avocados that makes people a little unbalanced after prolonged exposure.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. The only people around here who have really good tans this time of year are gardeners and homeless
HTH
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 04:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
12. He has a funny-sounding name
What more do you need to know about him?
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bliss_eternal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:23 AM
Response to Original message
3. you're right--it should be headline news.
Edited on Tue Nov-23-10 12:23 AM by bliss_eternal
total head scratcher as to why it is not. thanks so much for sharing what you found about this, here. as soon as i gain my composure, i'll see what i can find out about this incident. this is a shocking story. :wow:
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MindPilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
16. Good point -- reminds me of that guy in LA last year.
He was stopped at the Federal center, there was a several hour standoff while they lobbed teargas grenades into the car and the occupant was completely unfazed. The only way I saw it is I happened across the stream of the raw feed from KTLA's chopper. A chase and standoff in LA that didn't make the news at all...just didn't seem right.
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boppers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:35 AM
Response to Original message
4. Well, he's not muslim, so he must not be a terrorist.
:sarcasm:
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Liberty Belle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:39 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. We don't know his religion. There are Muslims in Serbia, so he could be.
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krispos42 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:48 AM
Response to Original message
7. Serbian. Any chance he's a blond, blue-eyed, caucasian muslim extremist?
Which line would Savage Weiner have him stand in at the airport?
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 10:13 AM
Response to Reply #7
14. According to the CIA World Factbook, 3.2% of the Serbian population is Muslim
Given the history of that country, I think applying a little extra scrutiny to Serbian nationals at airports would make sense.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ri.html
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Skink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:48 AM
Response to Original message
8. nderwear bombs are being manufactured right now.
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MindPilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 12:57 PM
Response to Original message
15. Interesting that there seems to be nothing out there that indicates this guy's politics or religion
Someone posted in the UT comments section that they had searched property records on the possible address and found links to middle eastern locations & people. But that poster was clear that he wasn't even certain he was looking up the right address.

The latest story in the UT ties him to a couple of recent bank robberies--he may be the "Geezer Bandit"--and a shoplifting conviction several years ago.

Also a now-familar tale; his wife says he has had a lot of mental problems as a result of his job loss three years ago.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/22/man-explosives-case-be-arraigned-monday/

Sunday night in a telephone interview, Ivanova said her husband of 10 years was laid off from his job as a computer-software consultant three years ago and has been unemployed since.

She said he has become increasingly obsessive and would buy chemicals and electronics with money she earned from her job.

“I am afraid for my husband’s mental state,” Ivanova said. “He’s not well.”

She said chemistry was his hobby. Although she knew he was making things with the chemicals, she said she had no idea what. The economic downturn and Jakubec’s job loss took a heavy toll on his psyche, Ivanova said, adding that she recently separated from him.


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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. I read the whole thing this morning too. He may be just a nut jobbie.
BTW they want $258 per year to deliver the paper to your home now.
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MindPilot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. Holy crap!
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Xithras Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 01:40 PM
Response to Original message
17. HMTD is ridiculously easy to make.
It's basically Hex-fuel and peroxide. You can find recipes all over the Internet, and it uses ingredients that are legal and readily available. It's a low power explosive, but a large amount of it can do a LOT of damage.

I used to know a guy who used it to blow up gopher holes. He had to stop when he left a bunch out in the sun one day and it detonated in his backyard, blowing out all of his back windows. Nobody was hurt, but his wife was pissed.
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Nihil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-24-10 07:09 AM
Response to Reply #17
24. I know I shouldn't laugh ...
... but your story of the "gopher hole" guy just hit the spot!
:rofl:
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sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-26-10 10:53 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. it would seem more effective to blow up the Gophers.... i once buried an old transistor radio in a
5 gallon bucket in our big garden.. i ran a wire to the shed. i set it on a heavy metal station, it worked really good. we had gophers everywhere. mom and i were working in the garden later and she kept saying, "do you hear that.??"
so i unplugged the radio when we went out there, they already thought i was nerdy. but i grew up to work in Aerospace.
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 08:57 PM
Response to Original message
21. Prosecutors: Man Had Bomb Factory in Home (Largest ... in U.S. History)
Edited on Tue Nov-23-10 06:57 PM by Hissyspit
Source: ABC News

Prosecutors: Man Had Bomb Factory in Home

By ALLISON ASH, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MARK SCHONE and KGTV STAFF
Updated 37 min ago

A California man accused of robbing banks and assembling what may be the largest cache of homemade explosives ever found in the U.S. was ordered held on $5 million bail Monday.

George Djura Jakubec, a 54-year-old unemployed software engineer, pleaded not guilty to two bank robbery charges, 12 felony counts of possessing destructive devices and 14 counts of possessing ingredients to make destructive devices. He faces up to 40 years in prison.

Prosecutors say that eight pounds of the homemade explosive HMTD was found after a gardener was seriously injured in an explosion on Jakubec's property near Escondido last week. Federal and local officials also say they found nine detonators and 13 unfilled homemade grenades with attached shrapnel.

San Diego County Deputy D.A. Terri Perez called the discovery a "bomb factory" and said it was "the largest quantity of these types of homemade explosives at one place in the United States."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/m/screen?id=12226102&pid=4380645
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Hulk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 08:57 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. THEY'RE COMING FOR OUR GUNS!!!
They're coming for our guns!! It's Obama and those libruls...and it's time to declare war on those leftist swine! Get yur guns and climb into those shelters we all built to hold off the invaders.

What a nation of f*cked up morons!
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islandmkl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-23-10 08:57 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. or...just another blackpowder hobbyist with a penchant for advanced chemistry...
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sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-26-10 10:58 AM
Response to Reply #23
26. but didnt they just find another bomb factory... strange, i thought he was a "Lone bomber" with
mental problems.

better put people back to work so they dont have time to do this stuff.!!!
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sam sarrha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Nov-26-10 02:14 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. i was mistaken.. it was just this one guy so far.. obviously a nut case
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