The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Officials investigate Pentagon mail said to be laced with deadly ricin,
Federal authorities are investigating mail sent to senior Pentagon officials that is believed to contain the poison ricin, officials said Tuesday.
The Pentagon Force Protection Agency on Monday detected a suspicious substance on two envelopes at a mail facility on Pentagon grounds in northern Virginia, the officials said. Initial tests indicated that the envelopes, addressed to Defense Secre- tary Jim Mattis and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, contained the toxic material.
Col. Robert Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said the FBI had taken possession of the packages on Tuesday morning and would conduct additional tests.
“All [U.S. Postal Service] mail received at the Pentagon mail screening facil- ity yesterday is currently under quarantine and poses no threat to Pentagon personnel,” Manning said in a statement.
No one was injured in the incident at the mail facility, which is not part of the main Pentagon building.
A FBIspokesman said the envelopes were “currently undergoing further testing.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ricin is a naturally occurring byproduct of castor oil and can be made in the form of a pellet, powder or mist. It is usually dangerous only when used in an intentional attack, the CDC said on its website.
“We are maintaining our vigilance for all packages coming into not just the Pentagon but facilities worldwide,” a defense official said, speaking on the condition of ano- nymity to describe precau- tions taken by the military.
Ricin, which is part of the waste produced when castor oil is made, has no known antidote and can be lethal.
In 2011, four Georgia men were arrested and later sentenced to prison for plotting to spread the toxin simultaneously in five U.S. cities, targeting federal and state officials. That same year, U.S. counterterrorism officials said they were increasingly tracking the possibility that al-Qaida would use ricin in attacks against the United States.
Two years later, a Mississippi man sent letters containing ricin to President Barack Obama and a Republican senator in an elaborate attempt to frame a rival. The letters were intercepted at mail-sorting facilities for the White House and the Capitol.
In 2014, Shannon Richardson, an actress, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for mailing letters laced with ricin in May 2013 to multiple people, including Obama and Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York at the time.