Mounties conduct searches linked to ricin-laced letter sent to Donald Trump
Canadian police have searched a home in the Montreal area in connection with a ricin-laced letter addressed to Donald Trump.
Canadian police have searched homes in the Montreal area in connection with a letter addressed to US President Donald Trump that is believed to have contained the poison ricin.
The operation on Monday (Tuesday AEST), undertaken at the request of the FBI, comes after a female suspect was arrested trying to cross into the US from Canada, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
The woman, who was carrying a firearm when she was taken into custody, was due to appear in a US court on Tuesday to face federal charges, after the hearing was delayed a day.
The special RCMP unit — experts in chemical, biological, explosives and nuclear threats —- searched a homes in Longueuil and Saint-Hubert, south of Montreal. Police refused to say if the home belonged to the suspect, but the RCMP added that ricin-containing letters were sent to five other addresses in Texas.
Police in Hidalgo County Texas, without referring directly to the White House case, said ricin-laced envelopes had been sent to four officers.
“At this time due to an active federal investigation I cannot make any further comments,” Hidalgo Sheriff Eddie Guerra wrote on Twitter, adding one of the letters was addressed to him and that no one was injured.
Canadian media named the female suspect as 53-year-old Pascale Ferrier, who is Canadian and French.
Ricin, which is produced by processing castor beans, is lethal even in minute doses if swallowed, inhaled or injected, causing organ failure.
The Trump letter was discovered last week and did not reach the White House, according to The New York Times and CNN.
Mail addressed to the White House is first inspected and sorted in depots outside Washington.
CNN said the contents of the envelope were tested repeatedly at one depot and were confirmed to contain ricin.
Ms Ferrier had previously been living in Texas when she was deported to Canada last year. She was arrested in Mission, Texas, in March last year for carrying an unlicensed weapon, a fake driver’s licence, and resisting arrest, The New York Times reported.
Her arrest record from 2019 shows that she was arrested by the Mission Police Department on March 12, 2019 and released on May 18, 2019.
Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office had filed a motion to dismiss the charges based on her serving 20 days in jail. She was jailed for more than two months before she was released.
Officials learned that she had a six-month visa that she had overstayed and her arrest had violated the terms of her passport. She was deported back to Canada, The New York Times reported.
The date of the deportation is not clear.
The US news website heavy.com reported that a Facebook business page called La Techno-Creative Nomade, that is run by a Facebook profile with the name Pascale Ferrier, talks about being in Arkansas in June last year, after having been in Texas. The Pascale Ferrier Twitter account that threatened Mr Trump also referred to itself as “Techno-creative Nomad” in its bio.
On June 8, the Facebook page posted about being in Texas, writing: “I wanted to buy some typical things in Texas, such cowboy hat, boots or clothes, but I was very disappointed to see that almost all items have been produced abroad (China, Asia, Mexico …) and it’s often poor quality things with a high price.
“So finally I bought nothing because when I go somewhere I want to buy local! If I’m in USA, I want to buy ‘Made in USA’.”
A Twitter account created in 2010 with the name Pascale Ferrier and located in Quebec tweeted a threat to Mr Trump his month. When someone tweeted, “Can someone please shoot Trump in the face yet?”, the account responded on September 9: “I just read this tweet. I agree … Nobody did anything. It’s time to change! #killtrump” The same account tweeted on September 9 calling Mr Trump an “ugly tyrant clown”. The account has not been confirmed by officials as belonging to the same Ferrier, but it has the same name and is also from Canada. It has also tweeted about Women’s Day and about participating in 100 Days of Code.
AFP
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