NEW JERSEY REAL-TIME NEWS
ATF urgently searching for 700 lbs. of dynamite stolen 75 miles from N.J. border

Updated Apr 19, 4:17 PM;
Posted Apr 19, 10:41 AM



Federal authorities have doubled a reward to $20,000 for information about the theft of 704 pounds of dynamate stolen from a construction site in Pennsylvania last weekend.

The dynamite and 400 blasting caps were reported missing Monday from a gas pipeline worksite in Marietta, Pennsylvania, according to officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The ATF initially announced a $10,000 reward but doubled the amount Thursday morning. The money is offered for the recovery of the stolen explosives and/or the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

The Gregory General Contracting Company on Monday reported the large theft of explosives in Lancaster County.

The explosives were stored inside a locked truck trailer left on the site after workers left on Friday. The worksite security company did not discover the theft until Monday, when they noticed the trailer door was ajar with the locks missing, the ATF said.


"The ATF, along with our law enforcement partners are working very diligently and with a sense of urgency to recover the stolen explosives and to find those responsible for the theft," said Donald Robinson, Special Agent in Charge. "We are asking for the public's help in our effort to locate these explosives and to apprehend and convict those responsible."


"The amount of explosives taken has led us to take this very seriously," said ATF Special Agent Charlene Hennessy.

Hennessy said the ATF has no reason to believe the explosives are in the hands of terrorists but noted the agency "is running down every lead."

"It's too early to speculate on a motive," she said. "But we don't have any reason to believe it's terror-related."

The ATF released photos of the type of dynamite stolen to show the public "what to look for," Hennessy said.


The Gregory General Contracting Company is a subcontractor of Williams Partners, which is managing the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project in Lancaster County.

Among the theories investigators are looking at is that the crime may have been committed by a group or individual protesting construction of the pipeline, which will cut through 37 miles in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Last fall, about 35 protesters participated in an 18-vehicle blockade of an access road being built to accommodate construction work, according to LancasterOnline.com.

Theft and possession of stolen explosives is a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Anyone with information is asked to call the ATF at 1-888-ATF-BOMB (1-888-283-2662). Tips can also be submitted by using the Reportit(r) app, available from Google Play and the Apple App store, or by visiting www.reportit.com.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.s...nds_of_dynamite.html

Dam.....good idea but it will take more than that to wipe NJ off the map!

Guess we'll find out who took it when someone blows up a skyscraper.

Adds a whole new meaning to the term "boom sticks".

Give it a week and then check youtube for a bunch of "Hold my beer and watch this" videos coming out of Pennseltucky.

... seven ... hundred ... pounds.

Uuggghhh.

Somewhere, there's some guy going "I'm sure I locked up the explosives trailer. I know I did..."

That's a lot of BOOM to go missing....

Dynamite and blasting caps sure make a good initiator for an ANFO bomb. I hope they round it up.

WPVI 6 Phila reported on 11 news that 320 of the 700 lbs was discovered in a field less than a mile away. Tip call led them to that field.

Watched it live, but it is not on their website yet.

Here's another local station's coverage of the find.

some recovered..

Can someone help me with perspective on how much boom 700lbs of dynamite is? I know nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
Can someone help me with perspective on how much boom 700lbs of dynamite is? I know nothing.

For the techies:
https://www.un.org/disarmament...ard/kingery-bulmash/

https://www.dynonobel.com/prac...novations/mobile-app

https://www.google.com/search?...oAw&biw=1440&bih=742

Did not know Dynamite now looks like tube sausage!

quote:

Originally posted by preten2b:
Here's another local station's coverage of the find.

some recovered..

Looks like someone "maybe" was cooking the books and wanted to cover up previous sales.

UPDATE tonight. EAST DONEGAL TOWNSHIP, Pa. —

The ATF says exactly half of the dynamite originally reported stolen from a pipeline site in Lancaster County has been recovered.

Investigators are expected to continue to conduct interviews and determine if any additional explosives remain unaccounted for, or if they recovered them all on Friday.

- Download the WGAL app

Donald Robinson, Special Agent in Charge, said the explosives were discovered Friday afternoon by a person on a walking trail in Riverfront Park, near Vinegar Ferry Road and Old River Road in East Donegal Township. That's not far from the pipeline site.

Robinson said it's not clear whether more explosives are missing or if there was an error in the paperwork provided to the ATF.

"I don't have a lot of confidence right now in the reliability of the records the inventory is based on," he said.

Update: On Saturday an ATF representative said they are "increasingly confident" that the explosives recovered on Friday were the entirety of the stolen supply. From their investigation, the official said there are indications that the "original amount of explosives reported as stolen was erroneous."

However, the spokesperson clarified that the investigation is still ongoing.

The cartridges of dynamite, as well as all of the missing blasting caps, were found in a creek, Robinson said. He said everything left in that location has been recovered.

Robinson said the investigation into who's responsible for the theft continues.

"The fact that we've recovered some of this is great news, but we want to get a hold of the folks that stole it," he said.

Robinson said the items were probably dumped in the last 24 to 48 hours. He's asking members of the public to contact the ATF if they noticed anything unusual in the area in that period of time.

update

This thread reminded me of this local story form 1992. Kid steals 110lbs of Tovex from some company in PA. Crazy shit.



"It was no terrorist attack in the making, the Suffolk County police said yesterday, though the consequences could have been terrible.

Some 110 pounds of a powerful explosive were found in weeds beside railroad tracks in St. James, on the North Shore of Long Island, on Monday night. The explosives had been abandoned there, officials said, by one of five teen-agers who, on a lark, had helped his friends steal them from a construction site in Pennsylvania over the weekend. Then, they said when his mother told him, "Get them out of this house!" he did so.

The teen-ager, 17-year-old Kenneth Mabie of 30 King Arthurs Court in St. James, was arraigned on weapons possession and reckless endangerment charges yesterday, the morning after two Long Island Rail Road detectives spotted him leaving two large, thick-walled gray boxes -- clearly marked "Explosives" and containing 110 pounds of Tovex -- a short distance from the St. James train station. He was held in $25,000 bail.

Tovex is a water-gel type of explosive used to splinter boulders in mines and gouge out foundations at construction sites, and the 220 half-pound tubes found near the tracks about 5:15 P.M. Monday "were enough to level a city block," said Detective Joseph Kistinger of the Suffolk County police, who is heading the investigation.

Detective Kistinger said that although Mr. Mabie is the son of a Long Island Rail Road maintenance foreman, he had no dispute with his father and he never intended to use the explosives to blow up the tracks or trains along the heavily traveled Port Jefferson commuter line, which his father happened to be traveling that night.

Service on the line was halted for 90 minutes after the explosives were found and some homes in the vicinity were evacuated.

Drew Biondo, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney, James M. Catterson Jr., said Mr. Mabie just left them there "while on his way to pick up his father at the train station."

He also said Mr. Mabie had told the police that he and his friends had experimented with several of the explosives, setting them off under a derelict car in a vacant lot on Sunday night.

Detective Kistinger said the four other youths were questioned on Monday night, "and we did recover what we believe is the remaining Tovex," bringing to 120 pounds the amount of the explosive recovered by the police. The other youths are expected to be arrested, the detective added.

Mr. Biondo said Mr. Mabie told the police that he and his friends found the explosives, along with 10 blasting caps and 61 blasting cap boosters, at a construction site in Stroudsburg Penn Estates near the Alpine Mountain ski resort in Stroud Township, Pa., where the family of one of the youths owns a home.

About 11:30 P.M. Friday, Mr. Biondo said, Mr. Mabie and his friends were in front of a Grand Union supermarket in Smithtown when they decided to "get away from it all" by driving to the house in Pennsylvania.

Early Saturday evening, Mr. Biondo said, "They decided to go for a drive and there, in the development, they see these two big gray boxes on the side of the road."

"Inside they found an instruction manual," Mr. Biondo added, pointing out that the police in Suffolk and Pennsylvania are investigating to determine who is responsible for leaving the explosives unattended.

The teen-agers returned to St. James on Sunday night, "driving very slowly" with the explosives in the back of Mr. Mabie's car, Mr. Biondo said. "They go to a field near Sanson Lane, find an old derelict car and detonate three explosions under it."

Mr. Mabie then drove home and went to bed, leaving the explosives in his car. "Monday afternoon, he gets up," Mr. Biondo said. "He takes the explosives into the house and puts them on his bed. His mother unexpectedly comes in and -- she clearly can read 'Explosives' -- and she tells him, 'Get them out of here!' He has to go to the St. James station to pick up his father. So he places them in the weeds."