JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A national scam in which callers try to extort retailers by calling in bomb threats has reached northeast Florida.
Three businesses in Fernandina Beach got calls Thursday, including a Radio Shack and Walgreen's. A CVS store in Jacksonville and one in St. Johns County have also received calls. And in recent weeks, stores in Gainesville, Savannah, Georgia, Atlanta and Milwaukee have been called.
The first call in Fernandina Beach on Thursday went to the Walgreen's on Sadler Road at 2:22 p.m. The second call came at 2:35 p.m. to the Dollar Tree in Amelia Plaza and the third call was made to the Radio Shack in Amelia Plaza at 2:42 p.m. In each instance, the caller, who was described as a man with a Middle Eastern accent, threatened to detonate a bomb in the store if the manager did not load money onto a Green Dot card within 10 minutes.
Fernandina Beach police officers and Nassau County Sheriff's Office deputies searched each location and found no devices at any of the stores.
"While none of these calls have resulted in the detonation of any explosive devices, each instance is taken seriously until the store is determined to be otherwise safe," Fernandina Beach Police Chief James T. Hurley said in a news release.
"It's still an armed robbery even though someone didn't walk in there with a gun and say, 'Give me your money.' It's still considered a robbery because they're using intimidation and making threats to get money," said News4Jax crime expert Gil Smith.
Last month at the CVS in St. Johns County, an employee received a call from an unknown person with a Middle Eastern accent, according to the FBI. Investigators said the caller demanded $2,000 in Green Dot cards or he was going to detonate an explosive device in the parking lot.
The manager spoke to the caller after the employee transferred the call. The caller continued to threaten the manager, and after hanging up, the manager evacuated the building and called police, investigators said. There was no evidence of a bomb on the premises.
Additionally, there were five reported incidents in the Atlanta area of bomb threats to CVS stores where a man with a Middle Eastern accent demanded Green Dot cards in the amount of $500 apiece or he would detonate a bomb in the parking lot.
At the CVS in Jacksonville, a caller informed the victim that he won a car, but in order to receive it, he needed to purchase a Green Dot card with $500 loaded on it, investigators said. The caller then contacted the CVS store to ensure that it sold Green Dot cards.
The employee recognized it as a scam when the victim came to purchase the card, investigators said. An officer was dispatched to CVS, and investigators said the caller threatened to kill the officer and blow up his patrol car.
Ten retail stores in Savannah, Georgia, each received bomb threat phone calls, investigators said. In each case, the caller asked to speak to the store manager, demanding that 10 Green Dot MoneyPak cards each be activated and loaded with $500 and that the card numbers be read aloud over the phone, according to the FBI.
The caller threatened to blow up the stores if the managers did not comply and also threatened the store employees' homes and families, investigators said. The managers of all the stores described the caller as a male between 20 and 30 years old and with a foreign accent. No manager complied with the demands, and no explosive devices were found.
The FBI said these calls mirrored a number of similar phone threats made to various drugstores and retail outlets nationwide. One such call placed to a discount department store in Snellville, Georgia, was identified as an overseas Voiceover IP phone number.
To date, no explosive devices have been found anywhere in the country linked to this type of threat, investigators said.
While the reported incidents involved bomb threats, the types of threats vary, investigators said. Green Dot MoneyPak cards are reloadable and available at most retail outlets throughout the country and, like money wire transfers, are just as untraceable. The cards are not associated with any bank, meaning that the money is in the card.
Users of Green Dot MoneyPak cards are reminded never to give anyone the numbers associated with those cards, because doing so gives instant access to the money on those cards.
Anyone with information regarding this type of emerging scam can provide a report or complaint to the FBI at www.IC3.gov.