NEW YORK: A package containing an explosive device was found in a mailbox outside a New York home owned by billionaire financier George Soros, and the FBI was searching for the sender on Tuesday.
Soros, one of the world’s biggest donors to liberal groups and causes, has become a hate figure for right-wing campaigners in the United States and eastern Europe, and the target of a hostile media campaign by the nationalist government in his native Hungary.
An employee at the home in Katonah, New York, opened the package at around 3:45pm on Monday to find what appeared to be an explosive device, the Bedford Police Department said in a statement.
Soros was not there at the time, the New York Times reported.
Katonah, a hamlet in the town of Bedford, is one of New York City’s wealthier suburbs located about 40 miles (60 km) north of Manhattan.
Bomb squad technicians detonated the package in a nearby wooded area, police said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into the incident, police said.
A Hungarian government spokesman said: “The matter falls under the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities. After all, the incident occurred there.” He declined to comment further.
Soros has donated billions of dollars to his Open Society Foundation, a grant-making organization that funds civil society groups around the world. The foundation has clashed with Hungary’s government over the latter’s restrictions on immigration and asylum seekers. — REUTERS