By Joe Milicia
Associated Press
Saturday, September 1, 2007

CLEVELAND, Aug. 31 -- The FBI is looking overseas for suspects who have phoned bomb threats to more than 26 grocery stores, banks and discount stores in 17 states, including Virginia.

The callers have threatened to set off a bomb unless store employees wire money to an account abroad. At a Dillons grocery store in Hutchinson, Kan., the caller ordered customers and workers to take off their clothes and threatened to force them to cut off a manager's fingers.

Store workers have been so frightened in at least five cases that they've wired thousands of dollars to the caller.

Police in Newport, R.I., said workers at a Wal-Mart wired $10,000 to the caller. Authorities in Buchanan, Mich., said flustered workers at a Harding's Market sent $3,000 to an account in Paraguay, instead of Portugal as the caller demanded.

The FBI is examining those wire transactions and is working with authorities in Europe to locate possible suspects.

"We've got some pretty good leads," FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said. "Up to this point these are hoaxes. . . . I think folks are catching on and not sending the money."

Four bomb threats were made Friday morning to three grocery stores and a Wal-Mart in northeastern Ohio. The stores were evacuated, but they reopened within two or three hours after police did not find explosives.

A Bigg's grocery store and a U.S. Bank branch in suburban Cincinnati also received threats Friday.

At the U.S. Bank branch, a man told an employee to have workers sit on the floor and wire funds to an overseas account. Another employee completed the transaction, according to the Hamilton County Sheriff's office.

The caller also ordered the worker to put drawer and vault money in bags and go out to the parking lot. Deputies arrived to stop the worker from doing this.

Besides a bomb threat, the caller said he would shoot into the bank if demands weren't met, the sheriff's office said in a statement. He gave the impression that he was watching and knew the movements of everybody inside.

Complicating the investigation are apparent copycat threats. Criminal intelligence analysts are examining police reports to identify similarities in the calls.

The FBI believes that among the other stores and banks that have been targeted are bank branches at Wal-Marts in Salem and Fairlawn, Va.; a credit union in Albuquerque; a Safeway grocery store in Sandy, Ore.; a Wal-Mart in Rio Grande City, Tex.; a Macey's grocery store in Orem, Utah; a bank branch in Milford, Conn.; a Vons grocery store in Vista, Calif.; a bank in Savannah, Mo.; a bank in Ithaca, N.Y.; and banks in Tampa and Wesley Chapel, Fla.

The FBI suggests that employees get detailed information, asking for specifics about the bomb, what it looks like and when it will explode.

The FBI doesn't offer advice on whether to comply with the caller's demands for money.

"We can't advise companies whether to wire it or not," Kolko said, "but we hope they'll be real careful before they hit the send key."