Twin brothers have been arrested for attempting to manufacture explosives and for paying students to help extract gunpowder from fireworks.
Christian Toro and brother Tyler, both 28 and from the Bronx, were arrested by FBI on Thursday.
A search of their home revealed stock piles of bomb-building materials as well as a diary that detailed plans for a potential strike.
Twin brothers Christian and Tyler Toro, 28, were arrested in New York on Thursday by FBI for attempting to manufacture a bomb after explosive materials were found in their home
Christian, a former high school teacher in Harlem, resigned after a student alerted the school of a bomb threat. His work laptop revealed a manual on how to build explosives
FBI searched the home of the twins on Thursday and discovered the diary of Tyler (above) which detailed plans for a strike and details of an operation called ‘Flash’
Christian, a former teacher in Harlem in New York, had paid a pair of students $50 an hour to extract gunpowder from fireworks in his apartment.
He resigned from his post however after a student alerted the school of a bomb threat on December 4.
His brother Tyler returned his work laptop to the school, where technicians found a book about explosives on it.
Christian claimed he found the document while researching the Boston Marathon bombing.
Authorities interviewed Christian Toro at his Bronx apartment earlier this month, where he claimed the encountered the document while researching the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing meaning to only look at its contents and not download it, according to a complaint.
He said he’d never built a bomb.
But on Wednesday, students at his former school told agents that he paid at least two students about $50 an hour between October and January to break up fireworks and store the powder from them. The purpose of the bomb was not said.
On Thursday authorities found a stockpile of bomb-making materials in the Toros’ apartment including 20 pounds of iron oxide, five pounds of aluminum powder, five pounds of potassium nitrate, two pounds of confectioner’s sugar, a jar of black explosive powder, firecrackers, and metal spheres that could be used as projectiles.
The Toro apartment (above) was raided by FBI on Thursday where a stock pile of bomb-building material was found
Christian, a former teacher in Harlem, had paid two students to extract gun powder from fireworks inside of his home for $50 an hour
FBI also found the diary of Tyler Toro which contained alarming passages such as: ‘We are twin Toros strike us now, we will return with nano thermite’.
A yellow backpack found on the scene had an index card that the handwritten message: ‘Under the full moon the small ones will know terror’.
The diary also said ‘Christian arrested’ and ‘if you’re registered as a sex offender, things will be difficult. But I am here 100 percent, living, buying weapons. Whatever we need,’ according to the complaint.
The diary also mentioned throwing away evidence for an operation ‘Flash’.
‘When you find out I threw away all evidence [of operation code name ‘Flash’] I could find in your room, I hope this doesn’t turn into a scene from Goodfellas,’ the diary said.
Goodfellas is a 1990 Martin Scorsese movie starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci that chronicles a mobster-turned-informant.
Christian Toro was having also having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl at the school who called in about the bomb threat, according to News4.
That student was later arrested, according to a complaint.
Christian Toro was also arrested on January 31 on rape charges of someone under age 17, according to News4, however it is not clear if it the charges are related to the student.
The NYPD, FBI and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are expected to hold a press conference Thursday night.
There has been no immediate response to requests for comment from the twins’ attorneys.