FBI: San Rafael Animal Rights Terror Suspect Reward Upped to $250K

By Julia Cheever
Bay City News Service

The head of the FBI's San Francisco office announced a renewed effort today to capture an animal rights activist accused of bombing two East Bay companies with alleged ties to an animal testing laboratory in 2003.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 35, grew up in San Rafael and graduated from Terra Linda High.

He is charged in federal court in San Francisco with bombing the headquarters of Chiron Corp. in Emeryville on Aug. 28, 2003, and Shaklee Corp. in Pleasanton on Sept. 26, 2003.

The buildings were damaged, but no one was hurt in the explosions.

A shadowy group called Revolutionary Cells Animal Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility for the blasts and said the reason for them was that the companies did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British firm that tests products on animals.

San Diego has been a fugitive since Oct. 6, 2003, when he disappeared into a BART station in San Francisco while being followed by FBI agents.

David Johnson, the chief of the FBI's regional office in San Francisco, said San Diego is considered armed and dangerous and asked for the public's help in finding him.

"His bomb-making ability makes him a threat to any community. He needs to be taken off the streets," Johnson said at news conference at the Federal Building in San Francisco.

Johnson said, "No tip is too small" to be relayed to the FBI and said tips can be made anonymously.

"It's been 10 years. I just want to assure the public that his office is pouring manpower and resources into this investigation," he said.

The FBI has offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to San Diego's arrest, upped in 2006 from the original award of $50,000 announced in 2003.

The explosions at Chiron, a biotechnology firm, and Shaklee, which makes nutritional supplements, occurred in early morning hours. At Chiron, there were two blasts about an hour apart at two different buildings in the company's Emeryville complex.

Although no one was hurt, Johnson said the FBI was concerned that second Chiron bomb appeared to be intended to target firefighters and police who would be responding to the first bombing.

The Revolutionary Cells group said in its statements following the explosions that the bombs were made with ammonium nitrate and timers and that the Shaklee device was also strapped with nails.

In 2009, San Diego became the first person accused of domestic terrorism and the second American citizen to be placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list.

The list, which was led by Osama bin Laden until he was killed in a U.S. strike in Pakistan in 2011, was created after the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and is separate from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.

Johnson said that over the years, the FBI has received tips of possible sightings of San Diego in Novato, San Rafael, and Northampton, Mass. The fugitive also has ties to Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Costa Rica and Bolivia, the FBI said.

San Diego was a strict vegan at the time of his disappearance. Johnson said he has skills in computer networking, vegan baking and sailing and may be working in any of those fields, or possibly as an English teacher or translator overseas.

San Diego grew up in Marin County and is the son of retired Belvedere City Manager Edmund San Diego. After losing a job at a high tech firm in February 2003, he unsuccessfully tried to launch a vegan bakery in Schellville, according to the FBI.

He is 6 feet tall, has brown hair and eyes, weighed 160 pounds in 2003 and has several tattoos on his body, the FBI said.

San Diego was under FBI surveillance after the explosions but disappeared while being followed by agents in San Francisco on Oct. 6, 2003.

"He parked his car, got out of his vehicle and went to a BART station" and was not seen again, Johnson said.

"He was very good at eluding surveillance. Obviously he had a plan," the FBI agent said.

The next day, on Oct. 7, 2003, federal prosecutors obtained a no-bail arrest warrant and filed a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in San Francisco charging San Diego with maliciously damaging buildings and other property with explosives.

The complaint was replaced with a grand jury indictment in July 2004 that charged him with two counts of maliciously destroying property with explosives and two counts of using a destructive device in a crime of violence.

In addition to being on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, San Diego is included on an online Northern California Most Wanted list launched by federal and local officials this week. That website is at www.northerncaliforniamostwanted.org.

San Diego has also been profiled on the America's Most Wanted television program.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call the nearest FBI office or the agency's San Francisco office at (415) 553-7400, or
dial 911. Tips can also be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov.

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