Washinton man accused of shipping explosive packages to feds

Authorities arrested Thanh Cong Phan at his Everett, Wash., home Monday. (CHRISTINE WILLMSEN/AP)

Authorities busted a deranged Washington State man with a penchant for excessive 911 calls and unintelligible ramblings after he allegedly mailed nearly a dozen homemade bombs, court papers show.

Eleven explosive packages containing glass vials of black powder and fuses were delivered Monday to Washington D.C. government buildings, setting off mass evacuations and hazmat investigations.

The 43-year-old suspect, Thanh Cong Phan, is believed to have mailed the packages from a U.S. Postal Service kiosk in Mill Creek, about 20 miles north of Seattle. Each box contained a letter “with ramblings about neuropsychology, mind control” and terrorism, according to charging documents.

Packages were received at the U.S. Secret Service’s White House mail hub, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation mail facility in Baltimore, according to the complaint filed in Seattle’s U.S. District Court. Four military facilities in the D.C. metropolitan area, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Fort Belvoir and the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren received similar packages.

FBI officials said the Central Intelligence Agency is Langley received one as well.

The return address pointed to the Naval Station Everett north of Seattle. Phan lives in Everett.

No one was hurt by the packages but had the explosive device detonated, FBI bomb technicians believe it could have caused “significant injury to a person who was in proximity to the object, particularly due to the fragmentation of the glass jar,” investigators said.

The black powder tested positive for an ingredient found in gunpowder.

A USPS inspector identified Phan as the culprit after tracking the packages back to the Mill Creek facility and finding him on surveillance footage paying to send the boxes, according to court documents.

Some government agencies were aware of Phan ahead of the package deliveries, papers state, because he had “sent hundreds of letters and/or emails” with similar ramblings to what was found in the packages.

Before his arrest Monday, investigators said Phan texted 911 “as he frequently would do.”

Snohomish County deputies went to his home, knocked and arrested him when he answered the door.

He faces one count of shipping explosive materials.

Phan’s public defender, Ashwin Cattamanchi, declined to comment on the case Tuesday. 

- ny news