The six letters with explosive devices sent to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the Ukrainian ambassador and four other recipients came from Calle del Clavel, number 2, 3rd floor C, Miranda de Ebro (Burgos, 35,000 inhabitants).
The issuer, Pompeyo González Pascual, is a 74-year-old retiree, with a strong pro-Russian and pro-Soviet ideology, whom the National Court ordered to arrest for a crime of terrorism.
The investigation that has led to him analyzed the exploding envelopes and compared the DNA trace they contained with traces found in Pompey's garbage, with which the police assumed that this former official was the author of the homemade artifacts.
The trace that he left in the purchase of the letters, the stamps and the material to assemble the mill served for his arrest this Wednesday,
between a huge police deployment supported by explosives specialists in case the suspect reacted forcefully.
Pompey barely flinched.
The police operation was carried out with the instruction of the National Court, which specified that the search at the retiree's house should "include the intervention of all those effects, instruments and hardware objects related to the investigated crime, such as weapons, precursors , explosive substances...", according to information provided by the Herrero-Alegre law firm, which assisted the detainee ex officio.
The importance of confiscating computers or home telephones was also underlined, since the agents verified throughout their investigations how the fingerprint of the suspect had already revealed that he was a fervent consumer of pro-Russian content from the invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin.
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The hunt for Pompey, the 'lone wolf'
The operation lasted more than six hours and had the collaboration of Pompeyo González, who watched the police work undaunted.
The National Court attributes to him "the remittance of the six letters, containing handmade wooden boxes with a homemade explosive device inside."
They are those sent on November 24 to the Presidency of the Government;
on the 30th at the facilities of the Instalaza de Zaragoza arms company and the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, which caused injuries to a member of the building's security when opening the envelope received.
On December 1, another dangerous letter arrived at the Defense Ministry, another at the United States embassy in Madrid, and another at the Torrejón de Ardoz Satellite Center (Madrid).
The detainee, with little social life, prepared the cardboard envelopes on which the investigations were focused in his home.
The postmarks came from the central post office of Valladolid, with the code 47, which indicated that the explosive letters left the province of Burgos.
The stamps “Disello cat.
General 0.75 euros” and “Monte Santa Trega 2.70 euros”, which the letters displayed, revealed that the only two outlets where they were sold were the tobacconists on Calle de San Pablo, 17, and Calle de la Sombrerería, 19, in Burgos city.
The container or envelope of the homemade artifacts, in DIN A5 format and with a flap shape, type of closure, and particular folds, led to a specialized company, with which the investigators learned that, on November 5, 2022, Pompeyo González purchased 25 units of these characteristics.
The researchers also consulted the multinational Amazon, which confirmed that this user "between June and July purchased a kilo of pure potassium nitrate, wire with a wick, switches, copper filaments and incandescent light bulbs" and between October and November reported "the purchase of 100 x 50 mm adhesive stickers, 25 x 23 mm hinges, all kinds of screws, precision drill bits, templates to draw numbers and the alphabet, templates to draw numbers and letters of the alphabet”.
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A 74-year-old man was arrested in Miranda de Ebro for sending letters with pyrotechnic material to Sánchez and the Ukrainian Embassy
The comparison and analysis of these articles confirmed that the labels coincided with those used on the envelopes and that the calligraphy shows "an evident lack of spontaneity and sincerity, which is demonstrated by the construction system used, line by line, with a predominance of of the versal format [...] frequent stops, restarts and corrections, all of which may indicate an attempt to hide the usual style of writing”.
The hinges he bought were the same as those on the explosive devices, measuring 23 by 25 millimeters, while the drill bits he ordered correspond to pieces of the device that arrived at the Ukrainian embassy, which caused one injury.
Once the police had surrounded the apparently peaceful neighbor from Mirandés, they set up surveillance.
A week before the arrest, the officers collected Pompey's garbage can from the dumpster on the street.
On January 18, “a bag of waste that he deposited in a container near his home was immediately collected, which was transferred to the Scientific Police Station, where analysis of the DNA samples found inside the said bag”.
The report showed that the DNA in this trash matched the "genetic profile" collected on the stamps and artifacts.
The National Court attributes to the detainee a crime of terrorism, defined as "the purpose of spreading a situation of insecurity due to the repetition of activities, with an intrinsic capacity necessary to produce situations of terror in the community, due to the citizen insecurity that it entails".
On this basis, Wednesday, January 25, was chosen to act with personnel from the National Court, specialized dogs from Valladolid and up to 40 agents deployed in the neighborhood.
At half past four in the afternoon the retiree left the portal and ended the so-called Operation Kovert, which in Ukrainian means "postal envelope" like the ones Pompey sent without anyone around him imagining it.
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