Man in West Bandung Arrested for Assembling Bombs and Creating Tutorials
A man identified by the initials MSA (25) has been arrested by police due to his expertise in assembling both low-explosive and high-explosive devices. He is also suspected of conducting dozens of bomb detonations as experimental tests. Police apprehended MSA at his residence in Parompag, West Bandung, and seized several improvised bombs.
“Regarding the high-explosive bombs, he has conducted approximately 16 trials. He performed these with significant explosive power and recorded videos of them. For low-explosives, he has conducted approximately 40 trials,” stated the Head of Public Relations for the West Java Regional Police, Kombes Pol Hendra Rochmawan, during a press conference at the West Java Regional Police Headquarters on Thursday (17/9).
In addition to assembling bombs and conducting detonation tests, the suspect allegedly recorded methods for bomb assembly and distributed them within a WhatsApp messaging group named ‘True Crime Community’, a group dedicated to real-life crime cases.
“In this context, his role was that of an extreme crime motivator. He was glorifying crime within this group. Even more concerningly, he acted as a tutorial creator for explosive manufacturing. Using his self-taught skills and ability to learn, he taught others in the group and actively sent posts,” Hendra explained.
Hendra stated that the evidence seized from the suspect included one mortar projectile (8.8 cm diameter, 44 cm length, 75-80 mm calibre), 50 blank cartridges, 50 live rounds of 5.5 mm calibre, as well as chemicals and explosive manufacturing supplies such as potassium chlorate, sulphur, black powder, and baking soda.
Also seized were aluminium powder, thinner, gauze powder, potassium, zinc powder, detonator powder, rush powder, along with mortars, pestles, and digital scales.
Furthermore, officers discovered grenade casings, three firearm barrels, a spring, a trigger, and various stainless steel pieces shaped like barrels and cylinders of different sizes intended for assembly into firearms.
“Also seized was one unit of a crossbow along with five bows, bowstrings, quivers and arrow pouches, archery medals, eight packets of metal arrowheads, and arrow shafts made of wood and fibre,” he elaborated.
Other evidence included backpacks, books, scriptures, cement, fuses, tweezers, rulers, charcoal powder, detonator casings, small bottles, latex gloves, and fermentation wick bottles.
Police also secured various carpentry tools and protective equipment, including chisels, wire brushes, toothbrushes, grinding discs, clamps, soldering irons, glue guns, fibre plates, hacksaws, wire sandpaper, cutters, drill bits, sewing thread, stationery, four steel helmets with padding and visors, as well as hand and foot protectors.
The Head of Sub-directorate 1 of the West Java Regional Police Criminal Investigation Division, AKBP Rikky Aries Setiawan, stated that investigations revealed the suspect learned bomb-making skills through social media. He was also inspired by the bombings that occurred in Bandung several years ago.
“Adopting those incidents, the suspect was inspired to create and planned to attempt further detonations,” he said.