August 5, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI is searching houses in New York and New Jersey in connection with the spread of the anthrax bacteria in the mail in 2001 that killed five people, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.
Law enforcement officials said that searches were under way in the town of Wellsville, New York, which is near Buffalo close to the border with Canada and in another house in Lavallette, New Jersey, 85 miles east of Philadelphia.
"The FBI and the U.S. postal inspection service are conducting searches at multiple locations in New York and New Jersey," FBI spokeswoman Donna Spiser said in Washington.
"These searches are related to the FBI's ongoing investigation into the origin of anthrax-laced letters mailed in September and October 2001, which resulted in the deaths of five individuals and serious illnesses in 17 others," she said.
Spiser said state and local law enforcement and public health authorities had been advised of the searches.
"There is no present danger to public health or safety," she said.
Law enforcement officials said the searches were not related to the U.S. government raising the terror threat alert level over the weekend based on intelligence that Islamic militants might be preparing to attack financial centers in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.
Nor were the searches of the houses linked to the arrest early on Thursday of two Muslim men in a FBI sting operation in Albany, New York, involving money-laundering, a shoulder-fired missile and a plot to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles in Washington)
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