Daniel Andreas San Diego, a name once whispered among FBI agents and animal rights activists alike, is now at the center of an international legal showdown after more than two decades on the run. On September 8, 2025, San Diego, aged 47, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in London for a five-day extradition hearing that could send him back to the United States to face trial for a pair of bombings that rocked California in 2003. His arrest in a remote Welsh cottage last year brought a dramatic end to one of the FBI’s longest and most perplexing fugitive hunts.
San Diego’s story reads like the plot of a Hollywood thriller—complete with high-speed car chases, missed opportunities, and a global manhunt that spanned continents. According to the BBC, San Diego was the FBI’s prime suspect in two bombings that targeted companies with alleged ties to animal testing. The attacks, which occurred just a month apart in the San Francisco Bay Area, left no one injured but sent shockwaves through both the biotech industry and law enforcement.
The first explosion rocked a biotechnology corporation in Emeryville, near Oakland, on August 28, 2003. Investigators believe a second device was deliberately planted to target first responders—a chilling tactic that underscored the calculated nature of the attacks. Less than a month later, on September 26, a bomb laced with nails detonated at a nutritional products company in Pleasanton, about 30 miles east. Both incidents were quickly linked to the Revolutionary Cells – Animal Liberation Brigade, an animal rights extremist group that claimed responsibility for the acts, as reported by BBC.
San Diego, a computer network specialist born in Berkeley and raised in the Bay Area’s upper-middle-class suburbs, was thrust into the spotlight as the first born-and-raised American to appear on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list. With a $250,000 (£199,000) bounty on his head—equivalent to ₹2.08 crore—he became a symbol of the post-9/11 era’s heightened anxieties about domestic terrorism. According to BBC and other sources, the FBI considered him armed and dangerous, and US prosecutors indicted him in 2004 for “maliciously damaging and destroying by means of an explosive.”
Yet, despite being under close surveillance, San Diego managed to slip away. Former FBI Special Agent David Smith, who was part of a special operations group tracking San Diego, described him as “remarkable by being unremarkable.” Smith told BBC, “He was relatively young and normal, there was nothing to suggest this guy was starting to look violent. We never got any indication he was aware of us.” But the calm didn’t last. On the day before San Diego vanished, Smith was hiding in camouflage outside his home in Sebastopol, Sonoma County. Hours after the surveillance team ended its shift, San Diego made a break for it.
What followed was a frantic 65-mile car chase through California’s highways, tunnels, and toll bridges, with San Diego weaving past commuters in a desperate bid to evade capture. “Almost from the time he came out of his house, he was acting frantically,” Smith recalled. “His driving patterns changed. Where he was going, he was driving erratically which is typical of someone trying to evade surveillance.” The chase ended in downtown San Francisco, but dense city fog and a moment of inattention allowed San Diego to vanish. He abandoned his car—engine still running—next to a subway station, leaving behind what investigators would later call a “bomb-making factory” in the trunk.
The FBI’s frustration was palpable. Supervisory Special Agent Andrew Black, a 27-year veteran, told BBC, “The US Attorney’s Office and case agents were making a decision whether to arrest him now or develop more information. The hope was he’d lead us to other members of this animal rights group that were using violence to promote their agenda.” But the delay proved costly. “As good as you can be, the longer you maintain surveillance eventually they’re going to notice something unusual and get spooked,” Black added. Smith and his colleague Clyde Foreman urged their superiors to make the arrest, fearing that San Diego might strike again. “Once you have somebody identified, arrest him,” Foreman insisted, recalling the tense atmosphere in the years after 9/11.
After San Diego’s disappearance, the FBI watched family and friends, suspecting he might resurface. Leads pointed to possible hideouts in Central or South America, but the trail went cold. For 21 years, San Diego’s whereabouts remained a mystery—until November 2024, when a tip led the UK’s National Crime Agency and counter-terror police to a secluded cottage in the Conwy valley, near Llanrwst in north Wales. Living under the alias Danny Webb, San Diego was finally apprehended, 5,000 miles from the scene of his alleged crimes.
“I believe he had some support—you’re not chasing Jason Bourne,” Foreman remarked. “He was not a skilled intelligence officer. He had to have support.” San Diego’s arrest stunned many, especially the retired agents who had spent years pursuing him. The FBI, for its part, declined to comment on the missed opportunities to apprehend him earlier. However, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a statement at the time of San Diego’s capture: “Daniel San Diego’s arrest after more than 20 years as a fugitive for two bombings in the San Francisco area shows that no matter how long it takes, the FBI will find you and hold you accountable.”
San Diego is currently being held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London. He has declined to comment on the case, and the extradition hearing will determine whether he is sent back to the United States to face a federal arrest warrant. The outcome could have significant implications for cross-border law enforcement cooperation, as well as for the broader debate over how to balance civil liberties with the need to combat domestic terrorism.
For those who tracked the case from the beginning, the story is a sobering reminder of the complexities and challenges inherent in modern law enforcement. As Smith put it, “We were very experienced agents and knew a suspect when we saw one. It was definitely a missed opportunity.” But with San Diego now in custody and the world watching, the next chapter in this extraordinary saga is about to unfold in a London courtroom.
