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This Is What a Real Bomb Looks Like
szczys writes: You see them all the time in movies and TV shows, but is that what an actual bomb looks like? Probably not... here's what a real bomb looks like. This story stems from a millionaire gone bust from gambling addiction who decided to extort riches back from the casino. He built a bomb and got it into the building, then ransomed the organization for $3 million. The FBI documented the mechanisms in great detail — including the 8 independent trigger systems that made it impossible for them to disarm the thing. The design was so nefarious it's still used today as a training tool.
Since this is something that seems like it would be difficult to defuse or even work on, what would be the best way to handle the situation where it's found in a location like this? The linked article indicates that attempts to diffuse the bomb failed and it left a five-story crater in the building where it was located, which is probably less than ideal.
The only thing I can really think of would to try to build some kind of reinforced blast cage around it in order to minimize the amount of damage it can do or perhaps try to direct the explosion to minimize hard, much like a gun directs the force of a blast out of the barrel.
Also, would scanning it even be safe as what's to stop someone from building some kind of trigger that would respond to x-ray exposure? Even if there weren't such a trigger, could anyone even call that bluff?
Cutting open the case to get to the wires would have cause the aluminum foil to complete the circuit. The only option was the cut open the case and the wires simultaneously. To do that required a shaped charge. This is the only detonator that the FBI has come accost that couldn't even be disarmed by its creator for a reason. The ransom was just for the switch code to disable the tilt switch so they could move it to a safe place to explode.
I used to be a security officer and I had training on IED identification.
You're completely correct. And that's assuming you can see the thing in the first place. Sometimes the IED winds up under something. I heard of one case where a guy lost his leg kicking an IED that was hidden under a fried chicken bucket.
The only thing you can do is to look for something that has what appears to be the requisite components to be an explosive device.
What people don't realize is that the easy part is making a device that will explode, the hard thing is making it explode when you want it to.