8/24/99 -- 8:42 AM

Profit was motive in plot to blow up Trans-Alaskan Pipeline.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A Canadian man was accused of plotting to bomb the trans-Alaska oil pipeline on New Year's Day, allegedly devising the scheme in order to reap windfall profits when oil prices spiked upward.

``The reason he was doing it wasn't for any political or ideological terrorism. It was in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme,'' Larry Bettendorf, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Monday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Alfred Heinz Reumayr on Aug. 18 in British Columbia, and the extradition process to return Reumayr to the United States has begun, Bettendorf said. The arrest was announced last week but few details of the accusations were disclosed.

The date the plot was to be carried out, Jan. 1, was selected to coincide with the expected problems resulting from the Y2K computer bug, authorities said. The date would provide a ``multiplier effect I'm expecting from the whole millennium effect,'' the affidavit quoted Reumayr as saying.

The arrest was made possible by an Albuquerque-based informant who met Reumayr while the suspect was serving time in a Texas prison for mail fraud and violation of probation.

The ATF said Reumayr, 50, intended to buy up oil futures, then detonate 14 bombs and destroy the pipeline. The informant, whose name was withheld, was supposed to set the bombs, Bettendorf said.

The arrest warrant charges Reumayr, of New Westminster, near Vancouver, British Columbia, with attempting to bomb the pipeline and aiding and abetting in the attempted bombing. Bettendorf said each count carries a possible 20-year prison term.

``We're just glad that the system worked and that the fellow was arrested,'' said Jennifer Ruys, spokeswoman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

The informant approached the ATF with word of the alleged plot in May 1998, authorities said. Reumayr said he needed explosives, equipment and a pilot, the affidavit said. Among items mentioned were fuse igniters, a Claymore mine, an anti-personnel mine, an impact fragmentation grenade, 35 pounds of military TNT, C-4 explosives, blasting caps, and three machine guns, it said.

The ATF prepared a photograph of materials that was forwarded to Reumayr.

By June 1999, the informant received a communique identifying three Trans-Alaska Pipeline targets - Thompson Pass north of Valdez, Tazlina River and Tanana River.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), August 24, 1999

Answers

Thanks, Ray. It has been largely irrelevant to me what assurances my utility cares to share about its rosy status. As far as I am concerned, the potential for fuel shortages and acts of sabotage is strong enough to justify seeking an alternative energy source (given that New England winters tend to be a mite cold). The problem is that one can't use words like cyber terrorism or sabotage in polite society. Articles like this help prove the possibility.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), August 24, 1999.