Fireworks executive rips page from Boston bombing playbook to trace NYC terror suspect
FIRST ON FOX – When news broke in 2013 that bombs packed with fireworks powder had detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were being hunted, executives at Phantom Fireworks did not wait for a phone call.
They searched their own records.
The company ran the Tsarnaev brothers’ names through its internal database and discovered one of them had purchased fireworks at a New Hampshire store. The same process has since become routine when suspected terror cases mention fireworks or homemade explosive devices.
When the names of the suspects in the alleged ISIS-inspired terror plot in New York City over the weekend became public, Phantom Fireworks executives did it again.
Within minutes, a transaction appeared.
At 12:46 p.m. on March 2, an 18-year-old named Emir Balat walked into a suburban Pennsylvania fireworks store and spent $6.89 on a 20-foot coil of green consumer safety fuse, Phantom Fireworks told Fox News Digital.
Nothing about the purchase stood out at the time.
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Surveillance video appears to show Balat ringing a bell at the counter before an employee emerges from the back. He appears to hand over his driver’s license, waits as it is scanned and signs the registration form printed by the system.
The person believed to be Balat then pays at the register and leaves with a plastic-wrapped package small enough to fit in one hand.
Days later, after his name surfaced in connection with the alleged terror plot near the home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Phantom Fireworks’ search produced a timestamp and a digital trail.
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For a company built around celebration — Fourth of July backyard shows, wedding sendoffs and bursts of color in the sky — the routine has become an uneasy one.
"It sort of feels like we’ve been invaded," Bill Weimer, the company’s vice president and general counsel, told Fox News Digital. "Violated is the word I’m looking for."
Weimer said nothing about the March 2 purchase raised suspicion at the time.
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"Under these circumstances, it looks pretty natural for a young fellow like that to come into a fireworks store and buy something," Weimer said. "Totally, from our point of view, an unremarkable event. Until it became remarkable by how he used the product."
According to the store, Balat purchased a single item: a consumer fireworks fuse. It burns slowly and is designed to be extinguished if reached in time. It is not explosive on its own.
"Consumer Fireworks Fuse looks about the diameter of twine that you would use to wrap a package," Weimer said. "It’s green, it’s fairly flimsy. It’s called Safety Fuse, which means you can stomp it out."
What made the difference was not the fuse but Phantom Fireworks’ system.
The company maintains transaction logs stretching back nearly two decades. In many states, customers’ driver’s licenses are scanned and stored upon entry. Registration forms are retained according to local law. Receipts are timestamped down to the minute. Purchases can be matched directly to in-store surveillance video.
Those timestamps allow employees to retrieve video quickly without combing through hours of footage.
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When terror suspects’ names appear in headlines — particularly when fireworks or homemade devices are mentioned — Weimer said the response inside Phantom Fireworks is almost automatic.
"We’re the biggest company around," Weimer said. "Anytime I hear a bad story about fireworks, I get the name and I look it up."
That reflex surfaced the March 2 transaction within minutes of Balat’s name becoming public. The receipt showed the exact time of purchase. From there, employees were able to locate the corresponding surveillance video.
"We’re not novices in dealing with investigative authorities," Weimer said. "We have dealt with investigative authorities before."
The company’s history in high-profile cases underscores why the reflex exists.
After the Boston Marathon bombing, Phantom Fireworks’ search found that one of the Tsarnaev brothers had purchased fireworks at its Seabrook, New Hampshire, store. Investigators later determined the bombers had visited multiple fireworks retailers, harvesting powder from consumer products to build pressure-cooker bombs.
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In 2010, during the failed Times Square bombing attempt, the suspect attempted to use consumer fireworks to ignite a larger device.
It did not detonate as intended.
"They’re designed not to do that," Weimer said. "They are not intended to mass detonate or chain ignite."
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Unless fireworks are specifically packaged to ignite sequentially, he said, they function independently — a safety feature intended to prevent mass ignition.
Phantom Fireworks operates nearly 100 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, along with seasonal tents and wholesale distribution. The tracking system exists primarily to comply with state regulations, verify age requirements and maintain consistent records across dozens of locations.
But in moments like this, it becomes something more consequential — a ready-made paper trail.
The company does not wait for subpoenas before checking its records when terror suspects are identified publicly. Weimer said searching the database has become part of the company’s response when fireworks surface in violent incidents.
Yet for a retailer built around spectacle and celebration, the association carries weight.
"That bothers us every time something like that happens. Somebody somewhere is gonna decide not to buy fireworks," Weimer said. "It's not good for business. Plus, the principal issue is that it's not good for people, not good for our country."