Comments on: Risky Assessments

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 05:18:39 +0000

😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:53:29 +0000

Does work 😉 ? Okay, so you do the text equivalent and the smilies appear, it’s not like I designed this program. It seems to want a hyphen nose 🙁

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:39:12 +0000

if he really was buying in bulk [for cheap] and re-selling it in small quantities for legitimate purposes, the only way he could afford to store it would be illegally, especially in nyc. but you’re right, the rest of the items make the whole thing very suspect.

they all set off bells and whistles for me too, likely for different reasons from yours. [how do i put one of those emoticon thingies in here?]

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:09:47 +0000

The basic point is, you are running up huge storage bills, especially in the NYC area, while supposedly selling small quantities over the ‘Net. Ordering 5,000 pounds of KNO₃ is out of whack, especially when you have 1,500 pounds in storage.

I get a feeling that this was a drop shipment that was already sold to someone who didn’t want it traced, which happens when you buy large quantities from a reputable supplier.

That many oxidizers just set off bells and whistles for me.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:23:59 +0000

KNO3 is mailable, in 1-lb packages, up to 25 lbs per mailpiece.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:09:01 +0000

Well, good golly, Miss Molly! People really do sell it over the internet, and apparently that's a legitimate use, for the stuff. Those are cheap enough containers [in the photo] to make repackaging feasible, though they don't look like IATA-approved shipping containers to me, and possibly they're not even approved for ground shipment. Also, on eBay, the buyers frequently pay shipping costs, so that might not be a consideration that the reseller would worry about either. Proper storage for huge quantities of an oxidizer would cost an arm and a leg [!] though. Even with all that legitimacy, it's worth noting that none of those other chemicals play nicely with each other, or with KNO3.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:25:14 +0000

There are a lot of people who heat with fuel oil or coal in the Northeast, powdered aluminum has a tendency to show up in some nasty cocktails, there are just so many possibilities with that collection.

Who were his customers?

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:26:52 +0000

Serrano only had 1500 lbs of KNO3 in his possession, but he had ordered 5000 lbs, according to the article. I had to look it up, but I thought that number sounded familiar: 5000 lbs ammonium nitrate in the Oklahoma City truck bomb. Not that the two different nitrates would be equally explosive, but that’s enough to make it a very bad day for a lot of people.

I wonder if Serrano, or anyone in his general vicinity, has recently acquired 1000 lbs or so of charcoal, or several hundred lbs of sulfur.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:33:28 +0000

Steve, we need more chemists working for BATF, you know, people who actually know what in hell this stuff is. You don’t buy it by the ton to sell it by the ounce, the storage costs and repackaging eat all of the profit.

Аня, a lot of this stuff is illegal to send through the mail, but I’ll bet that the Postal Service and UPS/Fed Ex guys are checking their route sheets after this came out.

By: Anya

Anya — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:56:25 +0000

I’d hate to be this guy’s mail carrier or FedEx driver….