Four Accused in Western University Explosives Case Now Face 31 Counts, Including Possession of TNT and Silencers

A stylized AI generated rendering of court drawings of the four suspects.

LONDON/OTTAWA — Four former Western University students at the center of a sprawling firearms and explosives investigation now face 19 new charges alleging possession of TNT and three other explosive substances, prohibited magazines and silencers, while one of the accused allegedly accessed data that could be used with computerized systems to make and traffic guns.

The allegations are contained in an amended list of charges filed Tuesday, August 11, with the Ontario Court of Justice and reported by CBC News and the London Free Press, adding charges to an already unusual case that began with an overnight break-in call inside Western University’s engineering complex in January.

The four accused—Jerry Tong, 27; Zekun “Alex” Wang, 26; Fei “Frank” Han, 25; and Feiyang “Astrid” Ji, 21—now face 31 separate counts, some jointly and others individually.

Most strikingly, court records identify for the first time the explosive substances the four are alleged to have possessed: pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN; trinitrotoluene, or TNT; dinitrophenol, or DNP; hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMTD; and lead azide.

Court records also show a change from the original charges. Han and Ji are now charged with possessing precursor explosive substances, while Tong and Wang face counts covering both precursors and finished high explosives.

The new charges significantly sharpen the picture of what investigators say was taking place inside a student residence near Western’s campus, while doing little to answer the larger question that has surrounded the investigation from the beginning: what were the alleged weapons and explosives being made for?

Tong, Wang and Ji are also newly accused of possessing prohibited overcapacity magazines and silencers—devices the charge sheet describes as suppression devices, prohibited under the Criminal Code for muffling the sound of a firearm—according to the court records reported by CBC.

Tong and Wang are also accused of handling and carelessly storing a prohibited rifle.

And Wang alone now faces one of the most notable new allegations: accessing computer data pertaining to firearm or prohibited-device design files that could be used with a 3D printer, metal-milling machine or other computerized system. According to the London Free Press, the charge alleges the data could be used “to make and traffic guns.”

That allegation—combined with the silencers, prohibited magazines, finished high explosives and alleged firearms manufacturing—broadens the questions surrounding a case initially linked publicly to the development of an anti-drone weapons system.

Those allegations add another dimension to an investigation that The Bureau reported in February had already drawn support from the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, or INSET, the specialized unit responsible for investigations involving terrorism, espionage and foreign interference.