Word: torch
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...estimated 40% of arson nationwide is economically motivated, as in the Boston cases that led to last week's roundup. Blazes are set by quasi-professional "torches" hired by landlords, real estate brokers, store owners, or welfare tenants who want to be relocated. The purpose, as New York Columnist Jimmy Breslin has put it, is to "build vacant lots for money." Charging up to $3,500 or a cut of the insurance money, the torch frequently mixes a brew of acid and sophisticated oxidizing agents to ignite a chemical fire that is all but impossible to trace...
...ghetto areas like the South Bronx and Humboldt Park, landlords often see arson as a way of profitably liquidating otherwise unprofitable assets. The usual strategy: drive out tenants by cutting off the heat or water; make sure the fire insurance is paid up; call in a torch. In effect, says Barracato, the landlord or businessman "literally sells his building back to the insurance company because there is nobody else who will buy it." Barracato's office is currently investigating a case in which a Brooklyn building insured for $200,000 went up in flames six minutes before its insurance...
Usually deadlier than the professional torch is the psychopathic amateur who burns once for strictly personal reasons such as jealousy or revenge. A federal study puts 55% of adult arsonists in the burn-for-hate category. In New York, a jealous suitor and two friends have been charged with setting a fire last year in a Puerto Rican social club in the South Bronx. Twenty-five party-goers died in the blaze. The alleged motive: the man's girl friend had attended the party against his wishes. Says Donald Mershon, manager of the Metropolitan Chicago Loss Bureau, which handles...
...insurance industry has begun to train its own arson investigators. With the aid of the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, insurance companies and city officials plan to create arson information banks to help apprehend torches. Unfortunately, catching arsonists requires enterprising detective work-and luck. The U.S. Attorney for western Pennsylvania, Blair Griffith, for example, has won 20 arson convictions based on the federal crime of mail fraud. Griffith relied on an arsonist turned informant: Merrill H. Klein, 53, a self-styled "business consultant" who worked as a "broker" for landlords eager to torch their property. After pleading guilty...
Last week's mass arrest in Boston also depended partly on the grand jury testimony of a suspected torch who turned state's evidence, pointing the finger at local landlords and corrupt city officials. Until then, private investigators for insurance companies had been sniffing around the remains of burned-out houses, working the streets and doing undercover work in Boston bars with an eye out for well-known torches. With evidence of a conspiracy growing, 15 teams of city and state police joined the private eyes, and finally, after 16 months of probing suspicious fires in the Boston...