German Police Raid Farmhouse Over Lethal Bioweapon Ricin Allegations

Emergency services and government scientists raided a farmhouse that contained an improvised laboratory allegedly producing potent biological weapon ricin on Thursday.

A teenager in Zeithain, in the state of Saxony in Germany is alleged to have manufactured and stored a notorious bioweapon contrary to the nation’s prohibition of weapons of war law, leading to a major police raid on Thursday. Police, firemen, and government scientists sealed off the teen’s parents’ farmhouse, where they say they found a laboratory in the attic.

Despite the major allegations, German publication MDR states no arrest warrant has been made for the teen, who remains at large, and no actual ampoules of ricin (a sealed glass capsule) have yet been announced to have been found. The purpose of the alleged preparation, which is reported to contain a mixture of the deadly ricin bioweapon and the neurotoxin aconitine, is also unclear.

Police say they were alerted to the teen because he made online purchases of equipment and chemicals which were reported to the government by the retailers as suspicious, but that he has no criminal record and no known affiliation with any political or extremist groups. The teen is said to be a “blank slate”. Nevertheless, extremism is being investigated as a potential motivation.

German newspaper Die Welt notes there have been several ricin plots in recent years, all thought to have been of an Islamist background, although there is as yet no indication that is the case here. The bioweapon is relatively easy to acquire ingredients for: being made from the seeds of the perfectly legal and reasonably common castor oil plant, it has something of an attraction for would-be terrorists.

Nevertheless, its utility for mass-casualty terrorism is not clear, it appears to be better suited to targeted assassination. Indeed, ricin is best known for having been used in the Cold War assassination of a Soviet dissident in London, who was stabbed in the leg with an umbrella. That umbrella had been tipped with a miniscule platinum pellet smaller than the head of a pin that was thought to have contained ricin. Having entered his bloodstream, the target died within days from a toxin for which there is no cure.

Nevertheless, in 2018 a Tunisian Islamist was arrested for making a “bio bomb” to be detonated in a busy public square, spreading ricin into the air. The amount of ricin he had created at the time of his arrest was enough for a thousand-plus lethal doses, it was stated. In 2023, an Iranian Islamist was given four years in prison for planning to launch a ricin attack on New Year’s Eve.

Ricin has also popped up in the United Kingdom. A so-called ‘poison cell’ of would-be terrorists was arrested in Wood Green, London in 2003, accused of conspiring to spread ricin to kill members of the public. Ultimately only one of those arrested was jailed, and that was in part because he had killed a police officer in the course of being arrested. The case has been controversial, with detractors claiming the case was manufactured or based on flawed evidence.

Most recently, the Southport Killer Axel Rudakubana was found to have “ingredients to make ricin”. The court heard as he was jailed for the murder of three children at a dance party that he had an Al-Qaeda training manual and a potent biotoxin, ricin, at his home. The Rudakubana case was never officially classified as terrorism, however, nor did the British government ever admit to having detected any motive or extremist affiliation.