And if they bought PEZ, they would not only need the candy, but the dispensers.
Posted on 10/20/2001 3:26:18 PM PDT by earaiak
I called the Hackensack location (because I grew sick of the false alarms and rumors) and this information is true. Guys be careful a notice just came to me from someone that works in Costco. 2 Arabic guys bought more than $35,000.00 dollars worth of candy, in Wayne $15,000.00 & in Hackensack $20,0000.00. After they left they found out their Costco i.d was fake, & they paid the whole thing cash. The F.B.I. was notified just be careful with your kids for trick o' treating on Halloween!!! i just thought u wanted to know that. DON"T LET THOSE KIDS GO OUT FOR HALLOWEEN!
Not only that, but what do you suppose they could do to the candy undetected to taint it? I suppose they might try using hypodermics to inject poison/anthrax/smallpox into the candy, but they'd have to be very careful not to leave an obvious hole.
Oh boy. Let's hope this is just a coincidence. Maybe the men were just trying to restock their convenience store in a hurry, and didn't have time for the niceties of a valid card? Not that we shouldn't try to track these guys down, but perhaps the simpler explanation in this case is the correct one.
Convenience store owners, or their employees, either have accounts with places like Costco and Sams, or pay by check, not in cash.
The same way they distribute anthrax now: send out a lot of "packages", but only load up a small percentage with the real thing. In this thread, there's a report of an arab buying a large quantity of candy, then returning it. The police "checked" it, and then it was put back on the shelf. Does anyone believe that every piece of candy in that lot was tested for every possible contaminant?
I am advising everyone I know to not by any halloween candy, and to not allow their children to accept any -- even "from people we know", since it can be tainted at the retail level.
With 70 virgins each, it can be done.
I had to get a shot a few days ago - the first time in years - and I hardly felt the needle its was so thin. I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to do it and still have it go undetected. When I was a kid we just looked for opened wrappers. Anything that appeared sealed (like those bite sized Snickers bars) I wouldn't look twice at.
By moving it back into stores owned by a Moslem terrorist. Or walk into a regular store and put bags of candy back on the shelves.
... by returning the tainted candy to the store for others to buy. I live near one of the stores where this alledgedly happened. The candy was returned AND PUT BACK ON THE SHELVES!
And if they bought PEZ, they would not only need the candy, but the dispensers.
Of course, another thing to note is that they wouldn't have to do anything to the candy to make everyone paranoid. Just the fact that some suspicious people have bought large amounts of candy is in and of itself sufficient to cause widespread fear.
A short primer on viral disease transmission. Many viral diseases are transmitted via fomites:
fomite
SYLLABICATION: fo·mite
PRONUNCIATION: fmt
NOUN: An inanimate object or substance that is capable of transmitting infectious organisms from one individual to another.
ETYMOLOGY: Back-formation from New Latin fmits, pl. of Latin fmes, tinder, from fovre, to warm. See dhegwh- in Appendix I.
In other words, you touch something, get the virus on your hand, then touch you face, mouth, nose or other mucus membrane.
Candy wrappers would be a perfect fomite because the act of handling the candy wrapper occurs immediately before the contact with the mouth.
In other words, no need to inject anything.
Just a light dusting of smallpox virus in the form or a powder. If done correctly it would be undetectable.
And unlike anthrax, which requires thousands of huge bacterial spores be inhaled into the lungs, relatively few microscopic smallpox viruses would be required. And nasal exposure would be sufficient to cause full blown infection, whereas nasal exposure with anthrax is relatively harmless.
No trick or treating for my kids this year.
All we can do is pray.
By MITCHEL MADDUX and PETER POCHNA
Staff Writers
A man who used cash to buy large amounts of candy from Costco stores in Hackensack and Wayne last week is not suspected of any terrorist activity, the FBI said Monday.
"We do not have any evidence that suggests that the purchases of these items was not for legitimate purposes," said Sandra Carroll, an FBI spokesperson in Newark.
The FBI detained the man "for reasons unrelated to the purchases," Carroll said. A law enforcement source who did not want to be identified said the man is a foreign national who was being held for immigration law reasons.
The candy, meanwhile, has been found, Carroll said.
News reports about the $15,000 cash purchases prompted public concern about the safety of Halloween candy.
However, Carroll emphasized that the FBI would notify the public whenever it came across credible information that poses a health concern.
This appeared at http://www.bergen.com/crisis/candy200110221.htm
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