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EmbarrassedHelp t1_jd7y4vt wrote

Reply to comment by Thor4269 in Ecuadorian TV presenter wounded by bomb disguised as USB stick by AudibleNod

I wish the article described what sort of wounds the reporter got, because for all we know it could have been a just a scratch. I can't imagine that a non government entity can find explosives powerful enough to do serious damage when hidden in a USB stick.

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illy-chan t1_jd7yy2t wrote

>non government entity can find explosives powerful enough to do serious damage when hidden in a USB stick.

The cartels have some access to some pretty nasty stuff. And, if it went off as soon as the victim plugged it in, I bet you could really screw up their hand. Maybe their face depending on how close they were.

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ChasmDude t1_jd8uqib wrote

yeah people shouldn't underestimate the power of military-grade plastic explosives. Israel assassinated someone using a relatively small amount hidden in a cell phone in the not-too-distant past.

Thankfully, it's hard for non-military people/groups to get, but cartels manage to obtain a lot of weapons they're not supposed to have.

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zzyul t1_jdb730v wrote

Yep, the CIA created cigars filled with C4 in a plan assassinate Castro. They had to keep the weight low enough to avoid suspicion and leave enough tobacco in it so it would smoke and still smell like a cigar so there wasn’t a lot of C4 in it. The tests still showed it would blow a person’s face off if the cigar was near their mouth when it triggered.

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ContraianD t1_jd80ntj wrote

There has been an influx of military grade equipment coming in from Mexico the last few years, Uber driver rumors of armored personnel carriers and more. Just last October Guayaquil had a slew of car bombs and coordinated attacks in the middle of the city. Strange times as historically Ecuador's role in the drug trade was almost entirely money laundering as they use the U$D in place of their own currency, but that's no longer the case.

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SamurottX t1_jd85s19 wrote

I'd assume it was mainly to their hand (mostly burns and a little shrapnel) because they were holding it when they plugged it in. The element of surprise probably did the most damage here because they probably had their hand around the entire thing and not treating it as if it was a bomb.

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MississippiJoel t1_jd8larg wrote

Well, just think about how explosive even just a tiny bit of gunpowder is. Then think about all that space inside one of those plastic USB casings, and you've got a lot of room for a lot of gunpowder, and all you'd need for a trigger is just some way to run a current to it; two wires, basically.

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Amauri14 t1_jdad5nv wrote

When I read the headline, my first thought was that the reporter might have lost a finger or two with that.

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