THE SUSPECT

Blasts as FBI swoops on Trump supporter

DETECTIVES yesterday arrested a man in Florida suspected of sending at least a dozen parcel bombs to high-profile critics of Donald Trump.

Cesar Sayoc, 56, was taken into custody in the car park of an AutoZone store in Plantation, near Fort Lauderdale, where witnesses said they heard a loud blast. Last night he was charged with five federal crimes and faces up to 58 years in prison if found guilty. A federal law enforcement official said more arrests could follow.

Local TV stations showed investigators using a large blue tarpaulin to cover a white van plastered with proTrump stickers before removing it on a truck.

Stickers on the van, thought to be Sayoc’s, include one of Trump riding a tank and another showing his rival Hillary Clinton in the cross hairs.

The swoop came after two suspicious packages addressed to Senator Cory Booker and James Clapper, the ex-director of national intelligence, were intercepted yesterday. Similar parcels had also been sent to former President Barack Obama, the Clintons and star Robert De Niro.

In Plantation, the manager of a used-car dealership next to the AutoZone, said: “I heard like a bomb. I opened the door and saw the FBI.”

According to Sayoc’s Facebook page, he is a Trump supporter who posted pictures and videos of himself at one of the President’s rallies in October, 2016. Another snap shows him wearing a Make America Great Again hat in front of the US Capitol in 2017.

Public records show he has been arrested numerous times over the years, including one case in which he was accused of threatening to use a bomb. HERO Trump decal on van