Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/07/german-couple-who-tested-ricin.html
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I can’t tell from the article what happened to the hamster. Did it die, or did the poisoning turn out to be an elaborate misdirection scheme involving Lily of the Valley?
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Poor hamster… 
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you can order ricin online? What possible legal use could it have? (well, OK, I just answered my own question, with “the Google”. Have you heard of it?) Anyway, turns out it may be used in chemotherapy and isn’t as heavily regulated as you might like to think it would be.
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It’s naturally existing in a useful crop. It can be harvested without terrible difficulty.
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Yeah, I can’t determine what was being planned here. Were the terrorists planning to kill our hamsters, or was it a plot involving a suicide hamster?
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Even if they weren’t plotting an attack, but were just fiddling around, they need to be put away for using a hamster (or any animal) for this kind of thing. Fucking disgusting.
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What does ATF mean in Germany? I forget which members here are from Germany…
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I was thinking the same thing you were. My prior experience with ricin was watching Walt make it on Breaking Bad. I guess this is the new thing I’ve learned today. Yay?
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I assume it was an efficacy test. Castor beans are legal and trivial to obtain; ricin not so much, so the suspect presumably ended up with a batch of hopefully-ricin of unknown purity and potency and wanted to have the hamster check their work.
(Edit: given that the suspect twice failed to reach Syria jealousy might also be a motive; if it was a Syrian hamster, article doesn’t specify whether it was a dwarf or Syrian type.)
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yes, but they apparently ordered prepared ricin. I wouldn’t be surprised if that attracted the attention of the “authorities” …
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Google translation:
The Analytical Task Force (ATF) are special units for the detection and control of biological, chemical or radiological hazards in Germany, with a focus on chemical analysis. [1] These units are typically deployed in professional fire brigades with extensive experience in coping with CBRN operations, and are materially resourced, coordinated and trained by the [Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster]
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The world was never the same after the hamster wars.
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Hamsters are the assholes of the pocket pet world, but that doesn’t make this OK.
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Jihamster.
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“Oh George. Not the livestock”
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The Reuters article has that wrong. It’s a mistranslation. The German articles state that they ordered Rizinus seeds (castor oil seeds/castor beans) from which they then extracted ricin.
They then used the hamster to test whether the ricin was potent enough - having apparently sought advice on that from someone over a messaging service, I’d guess whatsapp since that’s staggeringly popular in Germany.
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Never should have pissed off snowball.
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There seems to be a thing in Germany at the mo for poisoning people…
and offing those who annoy you generally:
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