PROVO, Utah, Aug. 11, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — A Romanian student who recently graduated from Brigham Young University and could not find a job in the U.S. was arrested Saturday after police say he made threats of terrorism.
Calin Mihai Oportov, 24, was reported by an administrator at the BYU Marriott School of Business International Career Center after a series of increasingly agitated emails from the former student, arrest documents say. BYU is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The administrator told officers “Oportov has been having difficulty finding a job placement, post-graduation, and is currently here on a student Visa,” the affidavit says.
“The Visa’s status and timeline puts a significant amount of pressure on Oportov to find employment before his status expires and he is forced to return to his home country of Romania.”
In an Aug. 5 email Oportov allegedly reported an interview “that ended in less than 5 min because I don’t have a green card. Life is so much fun I wish I knew how to make some bombs.”
In an Aug. 7 email Oportov reportedly wrote “this is clear discrimination…. Everything was fine until I told them I am an international student with an OPT. If the interview is indeed canceled I should just go there… and kill as many as I can. This is justice, death to all the evil Americans. Not one American on this planet is innocent, they are all evil, the devil in flesh and bone and it is my duty to destroy that evil.
“Maybe this is the reason why God has sent me here, to be a crusader and destroy the greatest evil on Earth, the Americans.”
In another email a few minutes later, Oportov allegedly wrote “All those people who hire from BYU year after year, but I guess God forbids them from hiring a BYU student who is not American,” and reportedly made threats against the employees of the banking institution where he wanted to be hired.
Oportov was arrested by Provo police on Saturday afternoon and was booked into the Utah County jail for investigation of threat of terrorism, use of weapon/hoax mass destruction, a second-degree felony. He was ordered held without bail.
