FBI arrests 28-year-old man for plotting to bomb Amazon data center

The FBI has arrested a 28-year-old man for planning a bomb attack on an Amazon data center. The man posted about his plans on the ‘militia forum’ MyMilitia and hoped that the attack would shut down ‘about 70 percent of the internet’.

The Texan man’s arrest took place on Thursday, Bleeping Computer writes based on the indictment. He wanted to plant a bomb at the AWS data centers in Ashburn, Virginia. There are several next to each other. He would have a hand-drawn map of the data centers, complete with ‘possible entrances and exits’. He had already bought the necessary explosives, although it later turned out to be an undercover operation by the FBI.

The man was framed by the FBI and their undercover arms dealer. The suspect also shared his plans with another person via Signal. He approached the FBI and then tipped the suspect about the ‘arms dealer’ on behalf of the authorities. After the transaction with the man was completed and he was given instructions about the explosives, he was arrested. A firearm and a machete were found during a search of his home.

The man’s motivation was to “make the oligarchy that currently runs the United States really angry.” The suspect also believed that the servers in those centers were being used by the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies. Incidentally, he stated in his posts that he would be willing to make a suicide attack out of it, but only if he “had cancer or something like that”. Amazon thanks the FBI for their work and states that it is constantly looking for possible vulnerabilities in its data centers.