Minnesota Patriots Council

Tucker, J.B. and Pate, J., 2000. The Minnesota Patriots Council (1991), va Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, Tucker J.B., Ed., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 159-183. 

Two members of the Minnesota Patriots Council were convicted of conspiracy to assassinate a deputy U.S. Marshal and International Revenue Service agents by ricin [127]. 

The attractiveness of ricin did not diminish because it found new grounds in the United States. In 1983, the FBI obtained one ounce of ricin oriented in a 35-mm film canister from an individual in Springfield, Massachusetts, who had manufactured it himself. This is believed to be one of several confiscations of ricin [76]. In 1993, an Arkansas man with survivalist group connections attempted to smuggle 130g of ricin from Alaska into Canada to use as a weapon [164]. Later, in 1995 two members of the Minnesota Patriots Council were convicted of conspiracy to assassinate a deputy U.S. Marshal and International Revenue Service agents by ricin [127]. 

In 1991, four members of the Minnesota Patriots Council, an anti-government right-wing group, obtained a kit called "Silent Tool of Justice" that contained approximately one dozen castor plant seeds and a toxin extraction procedure that one of the members followed. The plan was to mix the toxin with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and aloe vera gel and apply it on doorknobs of different individuals that were considered enemies of the group (Tucker and Pate, 2000). The four members were arrested in 1994. 

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