Los Angeles man charged with illegally transporting 32,000 pounds of fireworks

LOS ANGELES The man arrested at a South Los Angeles home where 32,000 pounds of illegal fireworks were found and where a police bomb-fighting vehicle was destroyed in an explosion has been charged with transporting explosives without a permit, court documents show.

Arturo Ceja III was arrested by federal agents on Saturday.

According to a criminal complaint signed by special agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Ceja paid cash for fireworks at a store called Area 51 in Pahrump, Nevada, last month and allegedly used a rented truck to deliver the fireworks to his home. in LA

Ceja admitted during interviews that he bought and transported fireworks, and allegedly told agents that he kept the fireworks under a tent in his backyard, according to the complaint.

It was not immediately clear whether Ceja had a lawyer.

Agents described the type of fireworks found during a search at Cejas’ home on June 30 as more than 500 boxes of commercial grade fireworks, both 1.3 aerial display fireworks and 1.4 hazard class fireworks in a large cardboard box. Police officers said they looked at what they described as homemade fireworks, explosive components and clear plastic bags for money.

Members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb disposal squad decided some homemade items were too dangerous to be carried out of the neighborhood by truck or even inside the department’s Total Containment Vessel, a truck-mounted steel and iron container designed to withstand the internals. explosion of up to 15 pounds of material, according to a detective.

The entire TCV exploded on Wednesday when officers destroyed the device, causing a “massive blast radius, damaging homes in the neighborhood and injuring a total of 17 law enforcement personnel and civilians,” Justice Department officials said in a statement.

The explosion destroyed the LAPD truck, damaged dozens of buildings and several cars and injured 17 people.

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Items detonated included what police and agents described in court filings as, homemade M-1000 and M-100 style fireworks, mortar-style fireworks covered in aluminum foil, and a black plastic bag containing M-style fireworks smaller.

About 45 special agents from the ATF’s National Response Team were in Los Angeles to investigate the discovery of fireworks and the explosion that destroyed the police vehicle.

Assistant special agent in charge, Michael S. Hoffman, told reporters Friday that efforts were underway to quickly map the scene and record the extent of the damage in the hope of finding out why the containment ship exploded.

Ceja was initially indicted on alleged state charges of possession of a device that damages and endangers children and was released on bail.