Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 11
Receipt of Mail
and Packages
FOR NUMEROUS REASONS, TERRORISTS HAVE LONG USED attacks
via the mail or other package delivery systems. The mail allows for
the attack to be delivered by unwitting third parties, while the attacker
remains safely anonymous. Letter and package bombs have claimed hun-
dreds of lives and maimed hundreds more all over the world. One indi-
vidual or a group of individuals can target multiple subjects in widely
disparate areas without risking capture. In the case of explosives, the det-
onation not only causes injury to the person opening the package but also
results in partial or complete destruction of the evidence. The packages
often find their way directly to the intended target and, if well concealed,
are impossible to detect until it is too late. Furthermore, terrorists are not
the only ones to use this method to attempt to kill or injure others. Dis-
gruntled employees, deranged individuals, and even jilted lovers have
been responsible for many such attacks.
Cases involving the use of the mail system for terror are usually diffi-
cult and require a long time, even many years, to solve. Remember the
Unabomber case. The bomber, Ted Kaczynski, terrorized the country for
years, sending bombs to unsuspecting victims in order to promote his
bizarre agenda. Simple investigation did not lead to his capture. After
years of fruitless attempts to solve the case, the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation (FBI) behavioral scientists agreed to one of the bomber's demands,
to publish his “Unabomber manifesto” in the national press. The FBI,
armed with an extensive psychological profile of the subject, gambled that
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