NEWS: Plastic Explosives Stolen In Albuquerque

Hundreds of pounds of high explosives, including 2,500 blasting caps, 250 pounds of deta sheets, and an unknown length of detonation cord, have been stolen from a storage facility in Albuquerque, NM. Local police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms say that they do not know when the explosives were stolen nor do they have any suspects. The explosives belonged to Cherry Engineering. They are cooperating with authorities.



No matter how you stack it, in these times, missing high explosives is not good news. Governor Richardson has said that he thinks that either the explosives were stolen by someone seeking to make a fast buck or someone with a mental illness. Well, that's not very reassuring. Of course, there are plenty of folks who have a burning desire for that much destructive power. Aside from the mentally ill, I guess the next largest market would be domestic terrorists. We can only hope that the matériel will be accounted for soon.

Related News Links:
kvoa.com
www.forbes.com
www.usatoday.com


[edit on 2005/12/20 by GradyPhilpott]

How do they not know when the stuff went missing?
250 pounds seems like alot, someone should have noticed it walking out the door.
Would the detonators be detectable by metal detectors?
Who knew the stuff was there?
Who reciently quit from the place?
Why is the ATF there and not the FBI?

So many questions...

I love this story. I'm a pilot (small, private plane). After 9/11 we've been subjected to all sorts of security BS and flight restrictions becuase of some insane notion that small planes are potential weapons. So although my local airport is in a perpetual state of lock-down a bunch of trailers holding hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds of high explosive are conveniently located in an isolated, unmonitored location??? Clearly the people in charge of national security just don't get it.

The same way the president goes on national tv to tell us all that its ok that he is snooping through our emails and listening to our calls and tapping our phone lines in the name of catching the "terrists". Meanwhile our borders are wide open and 10000000 mexicans a day are waltzing on in. Very easy to hide 10 or 20 middle eastern terrorists amongst all those brown faces...I feel safe, i dont know about you all...

I guess the spooks are gonna pull another Reichsteig Fire to push the non believers in congress to support Nazi Fascism Dictatorship.

Cant wait to hear what the story is on the sea plane that exploded in Miami before it hit the water.

These spooksters are truly a sloppy bunch.

Nah... the seaplane was an unfortunate and tragic accident. Too early to say for certain but it has all the earmarks of a fuel line separation with ensuing fuel explosion/fire which compromised the flight surface control cables. The combination of the fire/explosion and the pilot's attempt to quickly land the plane resulted in the wing separating. Tragic but nothing untoward here.

im going to have to say that im not taking a side yet till i see more facts on the situation, since they dont seem to have a clue what happen other then explosives were stolen. what bothers me is that they know the amount stolen, but not from where it was stolen.(or who stole it)

if mentally ill can get there hands on this stuff maybe the government should be focusing on security alittle more then making the patriot act permanent. they want us to feel safe, maybe they should guard their highly explosive materials alittle better instead of monitering groups like a catholic workers charity.

What makes deta sheets especially dangerous is that they can be hidden in books or letters. It cannot be spotted by a metal detector but are used by engineers for detonation

This is the line that makes we a little bit worried. We have Christmas, and we have New Years coming up. I only hope that we can get through the holidays again without any incident. This stuff is not picked up on metal detectors, so you strap yourself with it, use ceramic instead of metal for your shrapnel, and you have one hell of a weapon inside a stadium or your local Wal-Mart.

The type and amount of explosive taken could make hundreds of sucide bombers, or explosives. Makes you want to know a little more about the bombing in OK outisde the school stadium and what happened to his roomates, etc....

Okay, I got with my explosives expert because I had never heard of a "deta sheet". Correct name is DETASHEET.

It's a rubbery sheet explosive which typically comes in 1/4 inch thick strips about a 1/2 foot wide and several feet long.

My contact stated that this material being missing "is a serious event" and that the ATF has something of substance to be worried about.



[edit on 12-20-2005 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Valhall
My contact stated that this material being missing "is a serious event" and that the ATF has something of substance to be worried about.

What is so serious about it ? 250 lbs isn't that much. Any bomb maker worth his salt could make an explsove of similar power such as RDX. Sure it's in sheets, but many explosives can be shaped into sheets.

What is so serious about it ? 250 lbs isn't that much. Any bomb maker worth his salt could make an explsove of similar power such as RDX. Sure it's in sheets, but many explosives can be shaped into sheets.

FoxNews is reporting that the amount and type of explosive is enough to completely level a 10 story building. Pretty significant considering it took a whole truck of explosives to level the building in OKC.

Originally posted by nativeokie
FoxNews is reporting that the amount and type of explosive is enough to completely level a 10 story building. Pretty significant considering it took a whole truck of explosives to level the building in OKC.

LOL, sure it is - if you were a demolitions expert and knew the exact weakpoints in the structure. Otherwise it's complete BS

I'd be worried... But this happened in Albu "crack" eee... The explosives were most likely "acquired" by one of the numerous urchins which pervade the once quiet streets of my former beloved home. The end result will be either the spectacular demise of said urchins in a "let's see what this does" South Valley experiment, or the humorous use of valuable explosives to relieve a liquor store of $27.47 from the cash box, and a case of Bud Light.

Either way, APD will be right on it... In mañana...

Demolition grade explosives go missing all the time, this is nothing new in this country. Some are sold on the grey market (the majority) some are taken by crack pots that just want to see what they will do. Alot of the stolen material gets stored away in someones garage for years on end.

The OKC bombing did not level the building far from it, it was probably 4- 55 gallon drums of diesel fule nitrogen fertilizer with some blasting caps, the percussion of the explosion is what ripped open the face of the building. IF the Murray building had an underground parking structure there might have been a chance that the whole building would come down.

More then likely if that type of explosion was under the building though the reinforced outwalls of the parking structure would have contained the blast and focused the explosive power upwards, ripping a giant bubble in the center of the building, that would burst upwards orobably two or three floors, blowing apart almost everything. Sure it would have buckled a few support columns, but given the explosive potential of diesel and nitrogen I seriously doubt the whole building would hav collapsed,

Thus they set it off on the outside, while not totally efficeint, it allowed the percussion wave of the explosion to "shear up" the face of the building giving maximum affect to all the exterior floors of the building.

Look at the lateral damage surrounding the outside street where the truck was, pretty minimal I think a few cars in the adjacent parking lot were destroyed but total damage was pretty minimal, the exterior face of the building took 60% of the blast effect on that side, while the other side "vented" to free air basically.

Thats why suicide bombers are far more destructive when they come along side then when they are set off head on.

And the whole reason on that video with the contractors shooting at the cars, you would rather have it detontate behind you then have them come along side your convoy and then blow up

The type explosives stolen in this case are more specialized in their applications. I don't think you could take all of it and pile it together and do that much damage. But the DETASHEET is potentially more concerning, because it can be cut into strips and used to breach support structures. I believe that's what my contact was referring to about the fact that 250 lbs of the stuff constitutes a lot of damage. Not because of the "power of a single blast", but the multiplicity of precision damage that could result from that much sheet.

I see no reason the public needs to know about this matter. There are explosives available everywhere & if someone has intent to use them for a bad purpose they will, but I doubt this will be the case here.

In the past I had friends who were loggers & stored that crap everywhere including the garage. I had another friend who worked on a road crew & took some home for making fireworks - can you say idiot. I worked at a ski area & had to carry quite a bit of it in my backpack - Had I wanted too I could have pilfered some, but I didn't.

Anyway this story is just propaganda to influence the sheeple - I wouldn't worry too much.

Originally posted by grimreaper797
what bothers me is that they know the amount stolen, but not from where it was stolen.(or who stole it)

[edit on 2005/12/20 by GradyPhilpott]

alright well now they should figure out how the hell it got stolen. because this definately needs to be known for future purposes

Update:

The seriousness of this situation is becoming more clear, as well as the seriousness with which the law enforcement community is taking it. It definitely sounds like a professional job.



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[edit on 2005/12/20 by GradyPhilpott]

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