FBI agents investigating a Spokane, Washington, man charged with sending a letter containing the poison ricin to a federal judge said "similar letters" to President Barack Obama, the Central Intelligence Agency, a U.S. Air Force Base and the U.S. Post Office were seized or detected.
The letters to Obama and the Spokane post office were intercepted and found to contain active ricin toxin, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today in an e-mailed statement. The contents of the letter to Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane continue to undergo testing, while the letter to the CIA hasn't been found, the FBI said.
"Active monitoring of the mail stream continues in an effort to locate this letter and mitigate any risk its contents might pose," the FBI said, adding that it's unlikely a member of the public would encounter it.
The FBI and the New York City Police Department are also investigating anonymous letters threatening Mayor Michael Bloomberg that tested positive for ricin. That probe is also examining similar correspondence to Obama and to Mayors Against Illegal Guns in Washington. Bloomberg is co-chairman of the coalition, which is a national bipartisan group of mayors, according to its website.
Federal agents are questioning someone in New Boston, Texas, who is described as a person of interest in the ricin probe, said a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the information wasn't public.
Katy Chaumont, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Dallas, said in a phone interview that no arrests have been made in Texas.
"The ricin matter is an ongoing investigation and a number of FBI offices are looking at this," she said.
Matthew Ryan Buquet was charged May 22 with threatening U.S. District Judge Frederick Van Sickle in Spokane, in a letter sent with ricin. A total of five letters are now part of the investigation, the FBI in Spokane said in today's statement.
This month's incidents in Spokane, New York and Washington follow the arrest of a Mississippi man in April on charges of mailing ricin-laced letters to Obama and U.S. Senator Roger Wicker.
Ricin is made from castor beans and has been used experimentally in medicine to kill cancer cells, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. It's harmful and potentially fatal if inhaled or ingested, according to the CDC.
The mayor of New York is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
