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Man accused in Amazon data center explosion plot arrested in Fort Worth after FBI probe

A man planning to blow up an Amazon Web Services data center met on Thursday in Fort Worth with an undercover FBI employee who gave him C-4 plastic explosives and showed him how to use the devices, federal prosecutors said.

Seth Pendley, 28, intended to breach doors at the data center in Ashburn, Virginia, and detonate the explosives in order to damage computer servers there that he believed are used by federal government agencies, according to the FBI. The destruction would broadly disrupt Internet service, Pendley expected, and perturb “the oligarchy.”

After Pendley put the inert explosives in his Pontiac, FBI agents arrested the Wichita Falls resident.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas charged Pendley with a malicious attempt to destroy a building with an explosive. He made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Friday.

Agents executed a search warrant at Pendley’s residence and found hand-drawn maps, notes and flashcards connected to Pendley’s data center plan, according to a criminal complaint. The agents also said that they found an AR receiver with a sawed-off barrel and the removed barrel piece, wigs, masks, a pistol that had been painted to look like a toy, paint cans and a machete with the name “Dionysus” on the blade.

Law enforcement authorities learned of Pendley on Jan. 8, when a concerned person notified the FBI of posts on mymilitia.com. The person provided the agency with screenshots of posts that discussed riots at the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, according to the criminal complaint.

“I’m not a dumbass suicide bomber but even if I only have a handful of fellow patriots standing beside me I will happily die a young man knowing that I didn’t allow the evils in this world to continue unjustly treating my fellow Americans so disrespectfully,” Pendley, writing under the name Dionysus, wrote in a post.

In another post, Pendley wrote that he was planning to “conduct a little experiment” that he said would “draw a lot of heat” and could be “dangerous.” Another user asked what outcome Pendley desired.

“Death,” he responded.

Pendley wrote in Facebook messages that he was outside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6. Later, Pendley said that he brought a rifle with him that he had modified with a hack saw so that it would fit inside a backpack. He left the gun in his car, Pendley said.

On Facebook, Pendley expressed anger with the Democratic Party, and support for President Donald Trump, an FBI special agent wrote in the complaint.

Pendley described the data-center plan on an app, Signal, in February, and the recipient of the messages, an FBI source, shared the discussions with the agency.

The source and Pendley agreed to meet on March 31 in Fort Worth. At the meeting, Pendley was introduced to a man who Pendley believed was the source’s explosives supplier. He is an FBI undercover employee.

Pendley said during the meeting that he had painted his car using a substance that could easily be peeled off after the explosions in order to disguise it.

The criminal complaint quotes Pendley describing his motive.

“The main objective is to [expletive] up the Amazon servers. There’s 24 buildings that all this data runs through in America. Three of them are right next to each other, and those 24 run 70 percent of the Internet. And the government, especially the higher, CIA, FBI, special [expletive], they have like an 8 billion dollar a year contract with Amazon to run through their servers. So we [expletive] those servers, and it’s gonna piss all the oligarchy off.”

Pendley said that he believed the government would overreact to the explosions and that people would be awakened to how unjust the government is, according to the criminal complaint.

Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah wrote in a statement that the person who reported Pendley’s mymilitia.com posts played a central role in thwarting violence.

“In flagging his posts to the FBI, this individual may have saved the lives of a number of tech workers,” Shah wrote. “We are also incredibly proud of our FBI partners, who ensured that the defendant was apprehended with an inert explosive device before he could inflict real harm. The Justice Department is determined to apprehend domestic extremists who intend to commit violence, no matter what political sentiment drives them to do so.”