Posted on 05/22/2009 10:19:09 PM PDT by Cindy
Note: Audio is included at the link.
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QUOTE:
Press Room: Inside the FBI
Chinese-Americans Receive Phone Threats, 05/22/09
Listen with Windows Media Player Also available on iTunes
Mr. Schiff: Hello Im Neal Schiff and welcome to Inside the FBI, a weekly podcast about news, cases, and operations. Investigations are underway across the United States of telephone threats to Chinese-Americans.
Mr. Phillips: We really hope that theyll reach out to their law enforcement; local law enforcement to report it. They can also reach out to their local FBI office; weve got 56 field divisions across the country.
Mr. Schiff: Thats FBI Special Agent Dean Phillips. Hes the Chief of the Asian-African Criminal Enterprise Unit in the Organized Crime Section which is part of the FBIs Criminal Investigative Division.
Mr. Phillips: What weve seen so far is a number of phone calls to primarily Chinese business owners. The phone calls are coming in and threatening bodily harm to them or their family members.
Mr. Schiff: Any thoughts on where these calls are coming from and and who might be doing it?
Mr. Phillips: It seems like right now that the calls are being made through Voiceover Internet Protocol and the calls actually would be actually originating from China .
Mr. Schiff: Are we aware that these calls are human to human or are they recorded calls coming in to people here in this country?
Mr. Phillips: The description of the phone calls from victims, it sounds like its actually a person-to-person conversation. Its not a recorded call. Its a conversation like you and I would be having .
Mr. Schiff: What are some of the things being said by those who are apparently in China to Chinese people here in this country?
Mr. Phillips: Its mostly threats of bodily harm to themselves or their family members .
Mr. Schiff: We dont know the source so we dont know if its an organized thing coming from overseas or whether its just a few individuals doing this, right?
Mr. Phillips: Well at this point were actually approaching it as organized crime simply because the volume of calls really requires several people to be involved. It isnt just one or two people that could be doing all these phone calls. Furthermore, when you look at the activity itselfextortion, threats of violencethose are traditional organized crime, racketeering-type activities. And the purpose of which is certainly to gain money, go gain assets. And those are all definitions of what we call organized crime. So were looking at it right now as organized crime .
Mr. Schiff: Any idea when these calls started and approximately how many calls like this have been made over the time period?
Mr. Phillips: We started first hearing about these in early to mid-April and it was mostly on the West Coast. The San Francisco Division did a great job; they were the first to open something on that. And after that, a few weeks later, it really started moving into other cities across the country. And within the last couple of weeks its really been a flood across the country. Volume-wise were talking at least a thousand or more phone calls .
Mr. Schiff: How does the FBI go about investigating these kinds of threatening phone calls coming from outside the United States?
Mr. Phillips: Well as far as investigating agencies we certainly are going to be working closely with our local counterparts in various cities. In fact, again, back to San Francisco, this all started because of several local PDs noticed a large call volume and it was really a regional meeting to discuss this problem where we first became aware of it. Because the calls are originating from overseas were going to have to reach out to our foreign counterparts and seek their help and assistance at some point. Between now and then were actually working very closely with our colleagues in the Cyber Division (FBI). We really need their assistance since at this point, because like I said earlier, it appears the calls are being made over Voiceover Internet Protocol .
Mr. Schiff: Are there any monetary demands in these phone calls?
Mr. Phillips: Yes the monetary demands have been anything from maybe $10,000 to $50,000. Theyre usually round numbers, $10, $20, $30,000 .
Mr. Schiff: Can you give us an example of kind of extortion or a threat, if you dont pay were going to do such and such?
Mr. Phillips: An example might be you need to give us $20,000 or were going to beat up a family member, or were going to kidnap a child or a sibling, something like that .
Mr. Schiff: What areas of the country are we aware that a certain amount of these phone calls are coming in and growing as you indicated?
Mr. Phillips: From coast to coast and north to south. It started primarily on the West Coast, San Francisco, then we started to see a few in Los Angeles; New York followed right on after that. Soon after, Boston picked up on, then we saw it in Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, all over the country .
Mr. Schiff: Were not aware of small towns being inundated with these calls right now, we are aware of the larger cities?
Mr. Phillips: Absolutely. But thats one of the questions we have and were trying to look into that because certainly in cities like that where you have maybe a large Chinese-immigrant population, youre going to have a pool from which to draw upon if youre going to make threatening phone calls. What we dont know are small and mid-size cities. Are there victims in those cities as well? And were going to be reaching out trying to get the information out to a variety of law enforcement counterparts to try and look for that problem. We want to address the entire problem across the country rather just picking out the pockets; the ones that were currently aware of .
Mr. Schiff: What if Chinese people around the country are getting these phone calls and threats from, apparently from China, what should people do?
Mr. Phillips: We really hope that theyll reach out to the law enforcement, local law enforcement to report it; they can also reach out to their local FBI office; weve got 56 field divisions across the country. We also have the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) which can be reached through the FBIs web page, so victims could e-mail directly their complaints to the IC3 .
Mr. Schiff: Dont be afraid to call. The FBI is here for you day and night. Agents are working with police departments throughout the United States on these threatening phone calls to Chinese Americans. You can file a report on the Internet at www.ic3.gov or contact the nearest FBI office. That concludes our show. Thanks for listening. Im Neal Schiff of the FBIs Office of Public Affairs.
Wouldn't surprise me if it was already hacked by the Chicoms.
Cheers!
I saw that earlier article...both these links are working just fine, though.
Tainan said in part, “ I asked the guy...’Why so cheap? You show me no honor’”
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Give your son a big hug for me too, Tainan. You made me laugh.
Seriously...thanks for the post, I appreciate it.
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