[1][2] On August 14, 1981, CIA agent Boris Korczak, who had infiltrated the KGB but had been exposed, was shot like Georgi Markov with some sort of weapon that fired a minuscule pellet containing a potentially lethal dose of ricin into his kidney while he was shopping at Giant Food Store in Vienna, Virginia.
Lavy was stopped at the Beaver Creek border crossing by Canadian custom agents who found, along with the 130 grams of ricin, $89,000, a knife, four guns, and 20,000 rounds of ammunition.
[4][6][7][8] The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigators searched the home of James Dalton Bell, a 39-year-old electronics engineer, and discovered a cache of chemicals, which included sodium cyanide (500 grams), diisopropyl fluorophosphate, and a range of corrosive acids.
Subsequent analysis of computer files confiscated from the residence revealed that Bell engaged in e-mail communications with a friend, Robert East, a 46-year-old merchant marine radio operator, that expressed a desire to obtain castor beans to see if they could extract ricin.
The April 1998 indictment was the result of an investigation involving an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agent who infiltrated the group in March 1997.
Produced in a cooking-show format, the tape gave instructions on how to manufacture bombs and other assorted militia-type weaponry, including a feature segment on how to extract ricin from castor beans.
[4][10][11] Press reports indicated that FBI agents had apprehended a man in Tampa, Florida, for threatening to kill court officials and "wage biological warfare" in Jefferson County, Colorado.
Russian authorities reportedly raided Chitigov's home and seized materials, including instructions on how to use toxic agents to contaminate consumer goods, a small chemical laboratory, three homemade explosives, two land mines, and 30 grenades.
Co-workers at Agilent, a high-tech company, tipped FBI officials about the software engineer after discovering documents on "how to kill", undetectable poisons, and bomb-making Olsen had printed out from his computer.
[12] Reports have emerged that Ansar al-Islam, a Sunni militant group, has been involved in testing poisons and chemicals including ricin.
[15] In 2003, a package and letter sealed in a "ricin-contaminated" envelope was intercepted in Greenville, South Carolina, at a United States Postal Service processing center.
[24] The managers of eleven gay bars in the Capitol Hill region of Seattle received letters from an anonymous sender claiming to be in possession of 67 grams of ricin that would be used to dose exactly five patrons from each establishment with the intent of killing them.
[25] Speculations that the terrorist was possibly a homosexual himself abound,[26] particularly as the letter directly quotes a poem by gay author Mark Doty in a recently published anthology.
During the raid on the homes of a man and son in June 2009, a very small amount of ricin was allegedly found in a sealed jam jar kept in a kitchen cupboard.
[29][30] In January 2011, FBI agents discovered what was thought to be ricin in a Coventry Township, Ohio, home, and later reported that tests confirmed its presence.
[33] In 2011, the FBI arrested four men in the U.S. state of Georgia, who were allegedly plotting to deploy explosives and biological weapons to kill a number of American politicians, media figures, Internal Revenue Service employees, and innocent civilians.
[35] According to court documents, Thomas was inspired by the online pro-militia novel "Absolved" by Mike Vanderboegh, which features small bands of U. S. citizens rising up against the federal government.
Vanderboegh denied responsibility for inspiring the attack, saying in a blog post "I am as much to blame for the Georgia Geriatric Terrorist Gang as Tom Clancy is for Nine Eleven.
[46][47][48] Shannon Richardson was arrested on June 7, 2013, for alleged connections with ricin laced letters sent to politicians including President Barack Obama and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
[54] On March 21, 2014, 19-year-old Nicholas Todd Helman was arrested for sending a scratch-and-sniff birthday card laced with ricin to a man dating his ex-girlfriend.
[55] Helman was charged with attempted murder and risking catastrophe after lab tests showed that the card he placed in the man's family mailbox on March 6 contained traces of the toxic substance.
When Helman was first questioned about the incident on March 7, he told police that he had only coated the card with sodium hydroxide, which he chose because it resembled the toxin anthrax.
Helman also admitted to sending threatening messages to the man via Facebook, and police seized from him what appeared to be sodium hydroxide and a notebook with a ricin recipe.
In January 2015, Ali had attempted to buy 500 mg of ricin on the dark web, but he had been in contact with an FBI agent and was sent a harmless powder.
[59] On February 2, 2017, 27-year-old William Christopher Gibbs drove himself to a hospital emergency room in Fannin County, Georgia, US, saying that he had been exposed to ricin.
In response the Army National Guard and the local fire department were called out to his home town of Morganton, and the area was swept by personnel in hazmat suits.
This mail was addressed to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chief of Naval Operations John M. Richardson, President Donald Trump, and Senator of Texas Ted Cruz.
[63] On 13 June 2018, police raided an apartment in central Cologne, Germany and found a large amount of castor beans and ricin powder and paste.