FBI joins hunt for Barclays `grudge' bomber
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Your support makes all the difference.FBI agents involved in tracking down America's "Unabomber" - a fanatic who has carried out an 18-year terror campaign - are helping Scotland Yard in its hunt for the man responsible for posting or planting more than 25 explosive devices against Barclays Bank.
The Barclays bomber - who uses the name Mardi Gra - has demanded an unlimited amount of money in the extortion racket which has been carried out for the past 16 months.
His devices are expertly made - some are even hand-painted - and the bomber has gone to great lengths not to leave any clues. The Yard's anti- terrorist branch, which is heading the inquiry, fears that the campaign, in which at least three devices have exploded, injuring one person slightly, could escalate as the bomber becomes increasingly frustrated.
Unions yesterday strongly criticised Barclays managers for failing to tell staff that the organisation was the target of a concerted campaign. Only general security warnings, which all banks issue, were provided.
Barclays chairman, Andrew Buxton, said he was following police advice. He added: "We give our staff regular warnings about letter bombs and raids and keeping vigilant generally."
The bomber is believed to be either a disgruntled customer or one of the thousands of former members of staff recently made redundant by the bank.
For the past year, members of the FBI have been advising the anti-terrorist branch in its attempts to identify "Mardi Gra". They have drawn on their experience in investigating the "Unabomber", who has carried out a letter- bombing campaign across the country in which three people have been killed and 23 wounded in 16 separate attacks. Earlier this month, FBI officers arrested Theodore Kaczynski, who is suspected of being responsible.
Mardi Gra first struck in December 1994, when he sent six devices to Barclays branches in north-west London. Only one went off, burning the hands of the woman who opened it.
His devices are fitted into video boxes and books and feature shotgun cartridges and bullets designed to explode when opened. Most of the devices have gone to addresses in London, direct to the bank, their officials, companies connected to them and telephone boxes outside banks. One was sent to Northampton.
Almost all the packages have been posted from London and the Home Counties.
Officers believe he probably learned how to make the bombs from books, and details given in court cases.
The police have attempted to maintain a news blackout, but details were released after the bomber wrote to two newspapers. In a letter to the Daily Mirror he warned of a new, more deadly bomb that involves a double- barrelled shotgun.
The banking union yesterday reacted angrily to the news of the bomber. Iain MacLean, assistant general secretary of the UNiFi, said: "I'm absolutely furious about the way Barclays Bank has kept this matter under wraps while there has been a real threat to our members' safety and even lives.
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