A Canadian woman was arrested on Sunday in connection with an incident in which an envelope containing the deadly poison ricin was sent to the White House, according to The Associated Press.
Mike Niezgoda, public affairs officer at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the arrest took place at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York.
Canadian police on Monday are conducting an operation near Montreal airport in connection to the ricin-contaminated letter, the Quebec section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement on Twitter.
“Our Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives team (CBRNE) is leading the operation. Police and fire teams from Longueuil are also on site. All necessary measures have been taken to ensure public safety,” the RCPM said.
Two U.S. officials told The New York Times that the woman was armed with a firearm when she was arrested. A senior intelligence official told the publication that the suspect was living in the United States last year when she was arrested in Texas for possession of an unlicensed weapon, resisting arrest, and carrying a fake driver’s license. The official also said authorities later discovered she had overstayed her visa and she was deported.
“The FBI and our U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Postal Inspection Service partners are investigating a suspicious letter received at a U.S. government mail facility. At this time, there is no known threat to public safety,” the FBI said in a statement to CNN.
An RCMP spokesperson told Canadian outlet CBC News on Saturday that it was assisting the FBI in the investigation and that “initial information from the investigation suggests that the letter originated in Canada.”
The incident recalls prior instances in which U.S. officials have been targeted with ricin.
A Navy veteran was arrested in 2018 and confessed to sending envelopes containing the substance from which ricin is derived to Trump and members of his administration.
In 2014, a Mississippi man was sentenced to 25 years in prison after sending letters dusted with ricin to then-President Barack Obama and other officials, while a year before that a woman sent ricin-laced letters to Obama and then-mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, for which she was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
From The Epoch Times
