Two Bronx Brothers Arrested in Bomb-Making Scheme
February 16, 2018 by admin
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Mr. de Blasio said that investigators believed that there were no other people involved, adding, “There is no additional, imminent threat directed at New York City at this time.”
The investigation that ultimately led to the Toro brothers began on Dec. 4, when a bomb threat was called into the Harlem charter school where Christian Toro worked, according to the complaint and John J. Miller, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, who spoke at the news conference with Mr. de Blasio.
A 15-year-old student was arrested and charged with making the threatening call.
A spokesman for the school, Democracy Prep High School, said Christian Toro resigned on Jan. 9. Three days later, his brother returned to the school a laptop computer that the school had given Christian Toro, Mr. Miller said.
“After he resigned, Democracy Prep did a routine review of his laptop and was deeply disturbed by suspicious content,” said Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for Democracy Prep.
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A technician at the charter school examined Mr. Toro’s laptop, and found on its hard drive a copy of a book that contained instructions for making explosives, the complaint said. The school alerted law enforcement officials.
On Jan. 31, the police arrested Christian Toro and charged him with raping a minor. A law enforcement official said that the alleged victim was a student at the school where he worked. “That was something that developed as a result of the investigation of the bomb scare to the school,” according to Mr. Miller. Mr. Toro was released on bail two days later, according to city records. According to Bronx court records, the girl was 15, and Mr. Toro took her home for sex on two occasions.
On Feb. 8, the F.B.I. and police officers interviewed the Toro brothers in their apartment, and Christian Toro told agents that he had come across the explosives book while doing research about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and had not meant to download it onto his computer, according to the complaint. He said that he had never built a bomb, the complaint said.
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Six days later, on Valentine’s Day, law enforcement agents interviewed students at the charter school, who told them that at least two students had visited the Toros’s apartment to break down the fireworks, storing the powder in containers, the complaint said. It said that the students appeared to have gone to the apartment between October and early January.
On Thursday morning, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at the brothers’ apartment, where they lived with a female relative.
The complaint said that the agents found bomb-making materials in a closet, including a box containing about 20 pounds of iron oxide, five pounds of aluminum powder, five pounds of potassium nitrate, all materials that can be used to build explosives. It also contained about two pounds of confectioners sugar, which the complaint said can be used as fuel in an explosive. They also found firecrackers and other explosive materials and a bag of metal balls that could have been used as shrapnel in a bomb.
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Mr. Miller said that investigators also found “simulated weapons” at the apartment.
The complaint said that on a kitchen table the agents found a diary, which contained Tyler Toro’s name in it, along with contact information. The diary contained handwriting that said, among other things, “We are twin Toros strike us now, we will return with nano thermite.”
It also said, “If you’re registered as a sex offender, things will be difficult. But I am here 100%, living, buying weapons, whatever we need.”
The complaint said that in a bedroom that the brothers share, agents found a yellow backpack belonging to Christian Toro. Inside the backpack was the index card with the writing that said, “Under the full moon the small ones will know terror.”
“We don’t know at this point in the investigation, other than the criminal charges related to the explosives, the full breadth of what these materials mean,” Mr. Miller said, referring to the writings.
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Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
A law enforcement official could not say whether the two were affiliated with, or influenced by, an international organization.
Raymond Del Villar, 20, who lives in apartment across from the brothers, said he was on his way to school when he saw up to 20 detectives in the hallway, and his neighbors in handcuffs near the elevator several feet away on Thursday morning.
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“They were bringing stuff out in bags,” he said. “I was surprised.”
Another neighbor, who declined to give his name, said the boys moved in with a relative about two months ago. He said one of the brother’s worked at a Shake Shack in Yonkers and would give him a discount. That neighbor said the woman who lived with them was “a nice, courteous” woman.
Neighbors said they heard commotion at about 7 a.m. and saw detectives in the hallway and saw police cars outside.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” the resident said. “Later on, I found out they had bomb-making materials. I got kids! It’s scary to think about people like that in this building.”
Other neighbors described the twins as well-educated, nicely dressed young men who generally kept to themselves.
“They’re nice boys, pleasant, they held the elevator,” said Rochelle Shapiro, 63. “Why would someone want to do this?”
The arrests come after a pair of recent terror attacks in New York City.
On Dec. 11, Akayed Ullah, an immigrant from Bangladesh, tried to detonate a homemade bomb in a subway corridor near the Port Authority, bringing the heart of Midtown to a standstill. He later told investigators that he “did it for the Islamic State.”
Six weeks earlier, on Halloween, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant, killed eight people and injured a dozen others, when he rammed a rented Home Depot truck into a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan, near Stuyvesant High School. And on Oct. 6, federal authorities revealed that they had foiled a plot to detonate bombs in Times Square and the subway system, and to open fire at concert venues.
The arrests also come two days after Ahmad Khan Rahimi, an Afghan-born immigrant, who was convicted of exploding a pressure-cooker bomb in Manhattan in 2016, was sentenced to two life terms in prison.
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