A Peruvian man has been arrested for sending more than 150 fake bomb threats to schools across the United States, including several in Alaska.
Peruvian authorities arrested Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos, 33, in Lima, Peru, on Tuesday.
Nunez Santos is charged in the Southern District of New York with sending threatening communications, as well as soliciting a 15-year-old child for nude and sexual photographs. After she and other children refused to comply with his requests —made in an online game, while Nunez Santos posed as a teenager named “Lucas” — he emailed bomb threats to school districts, synagogues, airports, hospitals and a shopping mall in retaliation, according to the federal charges.
The threats were sent out between Sept. 15 and 21 to communities in Alaska, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Arizona.
“I placed multiple bombs in all of the schools from your School Districts,” Nunez Santos is alleged to have written in one of the emails. “The bombs will blow up in a few hours.”
The charges say an FBI agent was able to track down a phone number associated with Nunez Santos through the email domain names and providers.
Schools across Alaska had varying responses to the threats. Dillingham closed its schools, while districts in the Annette Island and Southeast Island districts evacuated their schools in response. The Anchorage School District also received threats but opted not to close schools.
“The threat is broad in nature and lacks specific information,” Corey Young, an Anchorage School District spokesman, wrote in an email to parents at the time. “Regardless, we are taking this threat seriously.”
In total, federal authorities say thousands of schoolchildren were evacuated across the country.
“Not only did Santos allegedly email hundreds of hoax bomb threats terrorizing schools, hospitals, and houses of worship, he also perversely tried to sextort innocent teenage girls,” said James Smith, assistant director in charge of the New York FBI Field Office. “His actions wasted limited law enforcement resources, put first responders in unnecessary danger, and victimized children.”
According to the charges, Nunez Santos is a web developer in Peru and used a virtual private network to communicate with the underage victims. VPNs are often used to mask a person’s online activity.
The charges against Nunez Santos carry a possible sentence ranging from 30 years to life in prison.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
