Scores of similar, emailed bomb threats have been reported to police in multiple US states, prompting panic and evacuations, as the culprits demanded payment in Bitcoin form, and threatened to cause “many victims” otherwise.
Threats were made, mostly via email, to seemingly random locations like schools, businesses, stores, attorneys’ offices and even to a Zoo, police said.
So far, reports of the sinister demands have been received in New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Utah, California, Illinois, and Mississippi.
Police in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said they had “found no credible evidence” that any of the email threats in the area were "authentic.”
The emails claim that an explosive device was hidden and "covered up carefully" in the building in question. If it were detonated, the author writes, there would be "many victims."
Earlier on Thursday, more than two dozen schools were placed on lockout in Colorado, following false threats about explosive devices planted at Columbine High, the high school where the infamous 1999 school shooting took place.
The emails pledged that the bombs wouldn't be detonated if a payment of $20,000 were made in Bitcoin. "If you are late with the money the device will detonate," they read.
Also on rt.com Columbine High School on lockout: Threats of planted bombs, ‘suspicious person’ in the areaThe NYPD's counterterrorism department said on Twitter that it was monitoring multiple threats sent to various locations in the city, noting that similar threats had been seen nationwide and are "not considered credible."
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tweeted that it was "aware of recent bomb threats" and would remain in contact with local authorities.