Serb-American was bank robber and bomb maker

“(CNN) -- Authorities have found a second homemade explosive and more of a type of explosive previously discovered in a house in an unincorporated area near Escondido, California, officials said Thursday.

 

The house occupied by George Djura Jakubec, a computer software consultant who is now under arrest, has been described by authorities as a bomb-making factory. They say it holds the largest cache of the two homemade explosives ever discovered in one spot in the United States.

 

San Diego County authorities confirmed Thursday they have found pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, a favorite of al Qaeda bomb-makers that is now the target of new U.S. airport body scans and pat downs.

 

They also found more hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD, in a bottle inside the house, but the two types of homemade explosives were not immediately removed because they are too volatile and the house is too cluttered to negotiate safely, Assistant Sheriff Ed Prendergast said.

 

Authorities had already recovered 8 or 9 pounds of HMTD, an explosive powder that suicide bombers use, authorities said.

 

The search of the house also turned up items "suggestive of armed robberies," Prendergast said in a written statement.

 

In addition to bomb-making charges, Jakubec, 54, is charged with two bank robberies. Now being held in lieu of $5 million bail, he was on probation for a 2009 burglary conviction when he was arrested last week.

 

Authorities are investigating Jakubec's intentions. He is a Serbian national who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and he lived in the house with his wife.

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Authorities also found Wednesday more blasting caps, adding to others discovered in the past week, but they were not removed from the house, officials said.

 

A San Diego County hazardous materials team removed chemicals from a shed on the property, authorities said. They included about 4 liters of hydrochloric acid, 1 liter of nitric acid, 25 gallons of sulfuric acid and 50 pounds of hexamine.

 

A bomb squad from San Diego County agencies and the FBI has suspended a search inside the home until Wednesday, as authorities study how to proceed within the cramped, cluttered home without causing a blast, Prendergast said. Authorities also found inside the house some more hazardous chemicals, which also won't be moved for now, he said.

 

The sheriff's department has secured a perimeter around the suburban house and closed the street off except to residents, Prendergast said.

 

One explosives expert described the eight or nine pounds of previously discovered HMTD as potentially "devastating."

 

"If you had 8 or 9 pounds in a vehicle in a street, you have a pretty large and devastating car bomb," said James Cavanaugh, a retired special agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

 

"Inside a home, it's going to blow all the windows and doors and walls out, but it's not going to destroy the neighborhood. People would be in danger if they were immediately in front of the house or adjacent to the house," he said. " It would be almost like a gas explosion."

 

Bomb squads must be wary of potential booby traps, Cavanaugh said.

 

"These explosives, like HMTD, I call the devil's own mixtures, and they can be set off by shock, friction, static electricity, heat, flame or even a chemical reaction," he said. "Added to the danger is that they are difficult to find in a filthy hoarder's hovel."

 

Outside court this week, Jakubec's wife, Marina Ivanova, was distraught.

 

"He's crazy," she told camera crews. "I think he lost his mind. He lost his mind or something. ... I know that he was collecting, obsessively collecting stuff."”