Bomb-Making Materials Awareness Program (BMAP) Outreach Provided Critical Awareness of BMM Suspicious Purchase Detection and Reporting

The Bomb-Making Materials Awareness Program (BMAP) was recently credited with providing the outreach and awareness necessary to identify a suspicious purchase at a home improvement store. In January 2020, a home improvement store sales associate recognized suspicious online purchases of potential Bomb-Making Material (BMM). Recalling information received from a recent BMAP outreach training event, the sales associate contacted the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in Brownsville, TX, who administers the BMAP program in Texas. The store manager sent a copy of the purchase order to DPS. The DPS Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division created a suspicious activity report (SAR) for the purchase and entered the information into the Texas SAR network to be shared with fusion centers throughout the state.

Based on the information provided in the purchase order, a receiving address and possible identity of the purchaser was shared with the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security office in Houston, TX. Diplomatic Security requested the analysis be entered into the eGuardian system. Within 48-hours of the purchase, local law enforcement and the FBI were able to contact and question the purchaser of his or her intent with the BMM. The FBI confirmed the suspicious purchase was made by a contractor working for a federal agency who was going to use the BMM to build Improvised Explosive Device (IED) training aids for planned IED identification and detection training.

While the contractor’s purchase was for legitimate federal training purposes, this case highlights the effectiveness of the BMAP's ability to train employees on how to identify and report suspicious purchases that can result in the interdiction of a BMM purchaser during the planning stage of the attack cycle. The home improvement store employee accurately deduced that the materials were being purchased to build IEDs and then reported the suspicious purchase to authorities, who took immediate, and correct actions, to ensure a timely investigation. The FBI lauded the home improvement store and its employees for their alertness and quick reaction in reporting the suspicious purchase.