Maenan, in north Wales, is not a place where very much happens. But earlier this week armed police descended on this tiny settlement, leaving neighbours in “disbelief”.
They learned that a man they had sometimes seen near his home on the outskirts of the woods was in fact one of the FBI’s most wanted men.
Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, was arrested on Monday by officers from Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA), supported by North Wales police. Describing him as an “animal rights extremist”, the FBI said he is alleged to have been involved in the bombing of two office buildings in San Francisco, California, in 2003.
San Diego kept very much to himself, his neighbours said, and they knew very little about him. But they did not suspect for a minute that the reason he always stayed close to his remote rural home was because he was allegedly hiding out from the FBI.
“I’ve never seen him at all,” a neighbour said. “He never goes out, the car is always on the drive, it never moves.”
Daniel Andreas San Diego. Photograph: FBI
In Maenan, where only a few hundred people live – the majority of them Welsh speakers – most people only knew that “an American man” had moved into the house by word-of-mouth. He is believed to have been living under an assumed name.
The FBI had offered a reward of up to $250,000 (£200,000) for information leading directly to his arrest and considered him “armed and dangerous”.
The agency said the first alleged bombing was in August 2003, with two explosions an hour apart on the campus of a biotechnology firm. A month later a nutritional products company was bombed.
Now, 21 years later, he is facing extradition, after he was apprehended more than 5,000 miles away, in the settlement of Maenan, between Conwy and Betws-y-Coed.
San Diego is believed to have been living for around a year or two in a house on the edge of the woods, many twists and turns away from the main road, high up along a steep, barely surfaced country track. He may have been living in Wales for several years. He is believed to have been working – although in what field is not clear.
A car thought to belong to Daniel Andreas San Diego outside his house. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
In Maenan, neighbours said they knew a “single American or Canadian man” had moved into the house which they said looked “well kept” from the outside.
The house is right at the very end of a track, where most homes appeared to be holiday lets. The glass patio doors look out on to nothing but rolling countryside and the valley below.
On Wednesday, the building he had supposedly been living in was empty, but from looking through the windows it had clearly been recently occupied. Men’s clothes hung on a drying rack, a wetsuit had been hooked from the top of the glass doors, while a plate, fork, and mug discarded on the sofa indicated that the occupant had perhaps left in a hurry.
Nobody in this remote corner of rural Wales said they saw or heard armed police swarm the house on Monday. Nor did they really know anything about the man who had been living there.
Others had seen him in the woods but had never spoken to him, or really given him a second thought, until they recognised San Diego’s picture on the news.
“My partner saw him, a bit of a way up there,” said David Hughes, owner of the Maenan Abbey Hotel on the main road. “It’s quite remote, you would never be able to find him, it’s quite a way off the main road.”
His partner had been walking his dog around four weeks ago when he had seen San Diego in the woods, he said, later recognising him from his picture on the news.
“I just feel a bit of disbelief really,” Hughes said. “It’s a sleepy little place, and you don’t expect things like that to happen here.”
“It’s not even a village, it’s a parish,” he added. “There’s 20 different addresses that all share the same postcode.”
Llanrwst in Conwy, north Wales. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
In the biggest nearby town, Llanrwst, a pretty place on the River Conwy, dotted with antique shops, cafes, and pubs, nobody knew anything of San Diego at all.
Although it is less than three miles away, news of his arrest had not reached Llanrwst. “If someone here knew about it, we’d all know,” said one man, sipping a pint of lager at the bar of the Pen Y Bryn pub.
“There’s remote areas everywhere,” he added. “You could drive five minutes anywhere from here, and you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s a good choice of place, I suppose,” his friend added. “There are worse places to hide.”
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