Two Men Try To Buy Multiple Cell Phones In Ithaca

wnem tv5 ^ | Aug 11, 2006 04:18 PM CDT | WNEM TV5

[DannyTN]

(TV5) -- While FBI agents pour into Caro another incident breaks out in Gratiot County. At approximately 11:35am August 11th police were called to the Dollar General Store in Ithaca after a" clerk in Ithaca became suspicious after two men came into the store, and became upset when they were turned down while trying to buy several disposal cell phones.

TV5's Mike Terry spoke with the clerk who called police. She said they were two "Middle Eastern" men and said they've been coming into the store weekly and buying disposable cell phones. She said the same thing was happening at the dollar general store in Alma.

You might think the clerk became suspicious because of what was going on in Caro but when we asked the clerk she said she wasn't even aware of what was going on.

The policy at their store is that they can only sell two cell phones, per person, per day. She saw the men put the phones in the trunk of the car and when she thought they were coming back in, she called 9-1-1.

We did talk to Ithaca police while there has been no crime committed-they do want to find these men, and run their names against government watch lists.

[BamaGirl]

Hoo hoo!

[Don Joe]

The Motorola GSM C139 is the Tracfone that Walmart sells for under $20.00.

Every report I've seen ("as I recall") said that they were buying Nokia phones.

And, every piece of news footage that I've seen ("as I recall") showed piles of Nokia phones and packaging.

So, do Nokia phones use lithium batteries?

PS: The news today is that the Michigan police are reporting that they have evidence that the perps were planning on blowing the Macinac (pronounced MacinaW, which Fox can't seem to get) Bridge.

This (the fact that they are planning attacks, rather than resale schemes or meth-lab feedstock) IMO makes battery flavor moot, unless some of them are caught with a meth lab as well as the phones. The fact that they are REMOVING the batteries seems to obviate ANY application vis-a-vis the phones using the stock batteries. For the kind of "set it and forget it" application (originally created by the KGB) that a terrorist could be expected to use, I would expect them to run the phones off of large alkaline battery packs which would give essentially unlimited runtime (they can keep ganging up arrays of D cells until they have the desired amp-hour rating, the sky's the limit).

PS: I do NOT dismiss the idea that they might be stupid enough to try to sell the batteries and chargers (i.e., ebay or similar venue) to "Make Money Fast". Jihadis are crazy. Crazy stupid. The SOB who hit the WTC the first time got busted because he was pitching such a fit at the rental store, demanding a refund on the deposit for the truck he blew up in the WTC parking garage.

These loons have their own internal guidance systems, with cockamamie "right/wrong" table programming. It's "right" to blow up the infidel office building, but it's "wrong" to be denied a refund on the truck used to blow up the building -- even if such behavior puts them in the spotlight.

Therefore I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they engaged in stuff that would draw even more attention to themselves, such as selling the "extra" batteries and chargers.

[Don Joe]

Possibly (I'm still enough of a cynic to say "probably") good news -- it looks like these weasels may actually have been telling the truth when they said that they were buying them for resale.

It appears that there is an ongoing racket in "unlocking" these phones, and selling them at huge markups for use as "normal" cell phones.

Check these out:

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=546164&version=4&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TracFone_Wireless

The other possible/"hopefully-probable" good news is that it's looking like they DIDN'T pass through Ludington -- according to the recent news reports they took the *really* long drive through Michigan's "U.P.", and then drove over the Macinac Bridge (you've probably seen reports and threads on this already, but it all of a sudden clicked for me that they *couldn't* have taken the ferry after all!)

Regardless, the Pumped Storage Facility IS a vulnerability, and I *hope* they will be maintaining *good* security for it!

(Posting this to the relevant threads.)

[Don Joe]

Argh, you fell off the pinglist!