A software engineer in San Jose has been charged with blowing up two electric transformers in the San Francisco Bay Area, which knocked out power for thousands of residents in December and January.
Peter Karasev, 36, was arrested last week and charged with arson, destroying an electrical line, detonating an explosive device, and possessing bomb making materials. Local police found so many explosive devices and materials in his house that they had to call in help from other agencies, including the FBI, DEA, and National Guard.
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“This could be a very dark day,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said at a press conference Wednesday. “We could be talking about a very serious tragedy with significant harm and potentially loss of life.”
Sergeant Doug Gates, who’s on the San Jose Police Department’s bomb squad, said that the volume of explosives could have caused a significant enough explosion that would have impacted “the entire community,” including a school across the street. Police evacuated Karasev’s neighbors and they evacuated his neighbors just in case there was “some sort of blast.”
Investigators haven’t yet released a motive in the case, but Karasev’s arrest comes amid heightened concerns about vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure since an attack on two substations in North Carolina’s Moore County in early December plunged 40,000 residents into darkness. No arrests have been made in the North Carolina case yet, but investigators reportedly zeroed in on the possibility that the attack was ideologically motivated, citing persistent threats against the power grid from extremist groups and white supremacists.
In a press conference Wednesday, San Jose police offered more details about Karasev’s arrest, which took place on March 1.
On Jan. 25, utility company PG&E contacted the San Jose Police Department to report that one of their transformers had blown up at around 2 a.m, and they believed the damage was not consistent with an electrical malfunction, Assistant Chief of Police Paul Joseph told reporters. A bomb squad recovered a detonated explosive device from the scene. PG&E also told police about an earlier, similar explosion at a transformer site in San Jose, which occurred on Dec. 8. No one was injured.
Investigators used surveillance video from Jan. 25, purportedly showing Karasev riding away from the transformer area on a bike after igniting the bomb, as well as cell phone tower data, to identify him as a suspect.
Karasev works as a software engineer at a company called “Zoox” that develops self-driving cars, and police arrested him at his workplace on March 1 and booked him into Santa Clara County Jail.
They relocated his wife (who they’ve ruled out as a suspect) and three young children, who lived with them, and then conducted a multi-day investigation at his property and found bottles of homemade liquid explosive, “multiple energetic homemade destructive devices,” bomb-making materials including pipes, wires, fuses and various chemicals, as well as five firearms and an “inactive” meth lab.
A Facebook page that appears to belong to Karasev identifies him as being originally from Moscow, Russia. He told investigators that he has family in both Ukraine and Russia and had struggled with the ongoing conflict, KGO-TV reported following his court appearance on Friday.
“He’s a highly educated person,” Joseph told KGO-TV. I don’t know that he has formal training in explosives and bomb making but he’s very educated in a science field.”
Karasev’s arrest also comes within weeks of the arrest of a serial bomber and Nazi memorabilia collector, who was operating in Fresno, about 150 miles away, and targeting vehicles and businesses.
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