FBI Investigates String of Store Threats

Graphic shows cities and states where recent extortion tactics where used in public stores. (Philip Holm - AP)

Also targeted were Dillons grocery stores in Hutchinson, Kan. At one store Tuesday, the caller ordered customers and employees to disrobe. Employee Marilyn Case told The Hutchinson News that store manager Mike Piros argued with the caller, but they relented when he continued to make threats and instructed them to "do it now."

He then demanded that one of Piros' fingers be cut off for every hour his demands were not met, and another employee got a butcher knife on his orders, Case said. Jim Peterson, a customer, told the newspaper that people became distraught.

"People came undone and started saying, 'No, no,'" he said.

Piros was not harmed. Police there initially said they were investigating whether the caller had hacked into the surveillance system, but later backed away from that possibility.

The calls continued Wednesday, with a threat at a Hannaford supermarket in Millinocket, Maine. An employee arrived to find the doors locked and employees and customers sitting inside in a circle, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Store maintenance associate Ivan Garay told the Bangor Daily News that store manager Michael Bennett told everyone to sit on the floor. Later, they were told there had been a bomb threat.

At a Safeway supermarket in Prescott, Ariz., a caller with an accent demanded $2,850 on Tuesday, according to police and city spokesman Kim Kapin.

"The maximum that Western Union can send through its service is $3,000," Kapin said. Wiring money also includes a $150 service charge, Kapin added. "This individual was obviously aware of that."

Initially, the caller led employees to believe he was observing them.

"After a while, it sounded like he was just taking a shot in the dark at what they might be doing, or what they looked like or how they were reacting to his call," Prescott police Lt. Ken Morley said.

Sherry Johnson, a spokeswoman for Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union, said the company was working with the FBI and U.S. Secret Service to trace the money sent through the service. It was also telling its agents to be on the lookout for the extortion plot. She declined to be more specific, saying "this is an ongoing law enforcement investigation."

A message seeking comment from another money-transfer service used, St. Louis Park, Minn.-based, MoneyGram International Inc., was not immediately returned Wednesday.