plantation, florida. we can confirm that 13 ieds were sent to various individuals across the country. these are not hoax devices. reporter: sources say, investigators used his cell phone to track him. after dna evidence was found on some of the packages. in addition they uncovered a latent fingerprint from one of the envelopes containing an ied that had been sent to congresswoman maxine waters. reporter: one of the reasons authorities arrested him in a public place was because an address associated with him in florida might pose a danger to officers if there were explosives present. officials say that he was living with his parents, but they had kicked him out. and so was living out of his van. which authorities took into custody after he was arrested. the van covered in political decals, images of the president and vice president. one saying, cnn sucks. cnn sucks!
may not be, one saying these are not hoax devices and the other saying this person appears to be a partisan. with respect to the devices and the definitive statement by the fbi director, there s been some debate whether these were inert, whether it was some kind of hoax. there were rediidiculous claim t maybe this was a false flag situation. when all signed are pointing in one direction, it seems like there were people who wanted a certain narrative to be true, where investigators, we don t look at things through that lens. my bomb technician who is went through them looked at these and said these were dangerous, these were improvised explosive
with images, a lot of images of president trump, vice president mike pence, but also images of democrats like hillary clinton with a target on her face as well as a sticker that says, cnn sucks. the fbi director this afternoon laying out how serious a threat sayoc posed. 13 ieds were septembnt to va individuals across the country. each device consisted of roughly six inches of pvc pipe, a small clock, a battery, some wiring and what is known as energetic material, which is essentially potential explosives and material that give off heat and energy through a reaction to heat, shock, or friction. though we re still analyzing the devices in our laboratory, these are not hoax devices. not hoax devices. from the fbi director. and this list, as i mentioned,
suspect now in custody in florida and scheduled to appear in court on monday. 56-year-old cesar altieri sayoc is charged with five federal crimes including mailing explosives and threatening two former presidents. tonight, the fbi is stressing that all 13 bombs sent to prominent democrats and other public figures were not hoax devices. sayoc s van, which was towed away, was plastered with pro-trump and anti-democrat images. a little while ago president trump said he heard that the suspect is a supporter of his, but he refused to say whether he bears any responsibility at all for any of this because of his inflammatory rhetoric. this hour i will talk to the former u.s. attorney and our correspondents and analysts are standing by. first, let s go to our senior investigative correspondent drew griffin in south florida for us right now. drew, we have new information about the bombs and the suspect s background.
their man, remarkably quick work here, and the keys were two clues, a fingerprint and dna discovered on more than one of those packages. tonight, 56-year-old cesar sayoc is in custody. we can confirm that 13 ieds were sent to various individuals across the country. these are not hoax devices. reporter: officials say that he was living with his parents, but they had kicked him out. so he was now living out of his van, which authorities took into custody after his arrest. the van, covered in political decals, images of the president and vice president and one saying, cnn sucks. a frequent chant at the president s rallies. sayoc attended one of those rallies in melbourne, florida, in 2017, and held up a sign with the same message. he has been active across social media, posting images of himself