© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A view of the aisle on the newly renovated Walmart Supercenter in Teterboro, New Jersey, U.S., June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Siddharth Cavale/File Photograph
(Reuters) – Legislation enforcement officers and retailers are investigating a current wave of bomb threats throughout the US concentrating on grocery and different retailer operators, the Wall Road Journal reported on Sunday.
Retail firms together with Kroger (NYSE: ), Walmart (NYSE: ) and Amazon (NASDAQ: ) , amongst others, have acquired bomb threats at their shops in current months, the report stated, including that some callers demanded reward playing cards. bitcoins or cash and threatened to detonate bombs if funds weren’t made.
A Kroger spokesperson confirmed the suspicious exercise at numerous Kroger places, including that the corporate is “working intently with native legislation enforcement and the FBI to research comparable threats which have occurred throughout the nation at many retail shops.”
These threats have been unfold throughout areas from New Mexico to Wisconsin. At a Kroger-owned retailer in New Mexico, an worker acquired a name from a suspect who requested her to wire cash and informed her a bomb would go off if she known as the police.
The same incident was reported in a suburb north of Chicago, the place a caller informed a Complete Meals Market worker {that a} pipe bomb had been planted within the retailer and demanded $5,000 in bitcoins, the Wall Road Journal reported.
The FBI stated it’s working with native and state legislation enforcement and is asking members of the general public to watch their environment and report any suspicious exercise to legislation enforcement, the newspaper added.
In accordance with the report, it’s unclear to authorities whether or not the threats are a part of an organized effort.