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eBay monitors bomb buyers

Follows Victorian man charged with possession of explosive substances

Online auction site eBay will not say whether it tipped off law enforcers about an alleged Victorian home bomb maker, but says it works very closely with police in monitoring bomb shopping suspects.

Spokesman Daniel Filer says the company monitors activities of its buyers and sellers and can detect when someone is buying items needed to make a bomb.

"And when people are buying all the right ingredients, it's a lot easier for us to detect that than, say, if they bought it from different hardware stores all around Melbourne," Filer told ABC Radio. "So we pass that information on to the police. We work with them closely."

Phillip John Marsh, 32, from Castlemaine, in central Victoria, on Tuesday was charged with recklessly endangering life, reckless conduct endangering serious injury and four charges of possessing explosive substances.

Marsh told an out-of-sessions court hearing in Castlemaine he had no intention of committing terrorism or creating a bomb and only wanted to make fireworks.

He was remanded to appear at Bendigo Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

Filer would not confirm whether eBay tipped off police about Marsh.

"Well, I haven't said that and we don't talk about the individual cases themselves, especially if they are matters that are now with the police."

But, he said, eBay worked closely with police in bomb suspect cases.

"We also work very closely with the police when they are monitoring individuals that they suspect of that activity and it works both ways.

"Sometimes we see the information and pass it on to police. Sometimes the police see the information and ask us if there's any activity that we're seeing that we can help them with."

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More about: ABC, ABC, eBay, Marsh

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