Authorities in Peru arrested a Peruvian national Tuesday after he allegedly called more than 150 bomb threats in to schools, hospitals, synagogues, and airports across five American states.
He was arrested in Lima, Peru’s capital.
Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos’s alleged threats spanned between September 15 and September 21 and caused massive disruptions, leading to flight delays, a hospital lockdown, and 1,100 schoolchildren in approximately 20 different schools being evacuated in Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York.
The suspect allegedly made the threats to New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Arizona, and Alaska. Officials said Nunez Santos made the bomb threats to New York and Pennsylvania in retaliation against three underage girls who refused his request for child pornograhy.
In his online conversations with the teenage girls, Nunez Santos used the alias “Lucas” and posed as a 15-year-old, officials said.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said in a press release:
When the girls refused his requests or cut off communications with him, NUNEZ SANTOS threatened to bomb their schools or kill them, and he sent the aforementioned bomb threats to schools in their areas with directives for the targeted institutions to contact the girls.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, on September 20, 2023, Nunez Santos sent emails threatening 24 school districts in Pennsylvania which said, “I placed multiple bombs in all of the schools from your School Districts. The bombs will blow up in a few hours. I’ll gladly smile when your families are crying because of your deaths.”
Through investigating phone, email, and IP address data, the FBI was able to pinpoint Nunez Santo in Peru as the one behind the attacks.
“The charges unsealed today show that those who engage in such conduct, wreaking havoc on our communities, will not find safe haven merely because they do it from outside our borders,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “Working together with our law enforcement partners, we will find you, and we will prosecute you.”
