Experts: Ricin in letters easy to make
OXFORD, Miss. — The ricin mailed to the president and a U.S. senator is relatively easy to make but generally can’t be used to target a large number of people, experts say.
A Mississippi man, Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, has been charged with mailing letters laced with the naturally occurring toxin to President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker. Authorities say he sent a third threatening letter to a Mississippi judge, though that letter is still being tested for the presence of ricin. Curtis has denied making the ricin and mailing the letters.
The FBI has not yet revealed details about how the ricin was made or how lethal it may have been. It was in a powdered form inside the envelopes, but the FBI said no one has been sickened by it so far. A Senate official said Thursday that the ricin was not weaponized, meaning it wasn’t in a form that could easily enter the body.
More than a dozen officials, some wearing hazardous materials suits, were searching the home Friday where Curtis was arrested in Corinth, Miss. FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden would not say if authorities have found ricin or materials used to make it in Curtis’ home, and officials have not provided details about how Curtis may have either obtained or made the ricin.
Law enforcement agents should be able to test the toxin found in the letters to determine its potency and purity, as well as learn what chemicals may have been used to extract it from widely available castor beans, said Murray Cohen, the founder of the Atlanta-based Frontline Foundation, which trains workers on preparedness and response to bioterrorism and epidemics. Those chemicals might then be able to be linked to purchases made by Curtis or materials found in his home.
Curtis’ ex-wife has said he likely didn’t have the knowhow to make ricin, and she did not know where he would buy it because he was on disability. But Cohen said ricin was once known as “the poor man’s bioterrorism” because the seeds are easy to obtain and the extraction process is relatively simple.
“Any kid that made it through high school science lab is more than equipped to successfully make a poison out of this stuff. Any fool can get recipes off the Internet and figure out how to do it,” Cohen said.
Those seeds, which look a bit like coffee beans, are easy to buy online and are grown around the world; they are often used to make medicinal castor oil, among other things. However, using the seeds to make a highly concentrated form of ricin would require laboratory equipment and expertise to extract, said Raymond Zilinskas, a chemical and biological weapons expert.
“It’s an elaborate process,” he said.
Cohen said ricin is not common because other poisons, such as anti-freeze, can easily be bought at a store. And it’s not a weapon of choice for mass casualties because it would need to be eaten or inhaled to be most deadly.
“You can put this stuff in an envelope, but how are you going to get the intended person to inhale or ingest it?” Cohen said.
If swallowed, the poison can in a matter of days shut down the liver and other organs, resulting in death, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.