5 Empty Suitcases Found In NYC In 5 Different Locations/Also Missing Fuel Tanker Truck

FOX NEWS | 5-2-04 | my favorite headache

[My Favorite Headache]

I have waited and looked around and did not see this posted. NYPD and the FBI have found 5 empty identical suitcases in 5 different locations around NYC. Subway station, Penn Station, 2 government buildings and a sidewalk.

Also missing is a huge fuel tanker truck out of New Jersey that has vanished and was full.

This story was mentioned in the last hour...anyone catch it? The Fed's are thinking this might be a test run for terrorists to see what the response time would be to suitcases being left and found in a location ala Spain attacks. They also fear the gas tanker might be used to ram a building with explosives and level it.

[areafiftyone]

The subways only have cameras in certain spots where there is a bench on the platform. The whole platform does not have camera surveillance. I know for a fact that the platforms in Grand Central and Penn Station don't have cameras and the main terminals do not have them in Grand Central.

[My Favorite Headache]

All I know is this:

1. If they are planning to level 5 spots in NYC at the same time...the numbers will make WTC look like a car crash on the turnpike in comparison. We could be looking at 25-30,000 dead.

2. If these are terrorists who stole this tranker truck and decide to ram another city with it filled with bio or explosives? We could be looking at another 25,000 dead.

3. Part 3 of this is...will Americans still be pissed that we had soldiers put Iraqi terrorists in a cheerleader pyramid?

[juliew203]

well, we can only imagine if this truck were rammed into a nuclear site...............

[cgk]

I'd like to know how someone got into the NYC FBI headquarters with a suitcase in the first place.

[glock rocks]

I believe the truck was empty when stolen. It apparently has a 9000 gallon capacity.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Legitimate security test.

While I think it's always safer to assume the worst, this sounds more plausible.

But added to the missing tanker story out of New Jersey, the scenario becomes more threatening.

[My Favorite Headache]

Thanks for the clarification...I knew I heard the number 9 in there. 9,000 pounds of anything is bound to be devestating.

[areafiftyone]

I'd like to know how someone got into the NYC FBI headquarters with a suitcase in the first place.

I have been in the FBI offices (at least to the down town one) and you can get in the lobby easily with a suitcase because immigration is in the same building. You can see them lined up in the lobby and outside waiting to get their cards. You just can't get into the FBI offices themselves because the door has a security guard behind a glass enclosure and you have to give your name. The lobby is not that secure.

[Yaelle]

Remember that they even did dry runs on planes cross country for 9/11. Actor James Woods was on one of those flights and told the authorities.

[John H K]

well, we can only imagine if this truck were rammed into a nuclear site...............

Basically nothing would happen other than a destroyed truck.

[juliew203]

why can't we require all tankers and small aricraft to be immediately fitted with GPS systems so that they can be tracked at all times? Then if one is missing, we know where to shoot.

This seems like a very cost-eefective way to end this problem.

[John H K]

Remember stolen trucks and tankers wouldn't even make the local news, much less get posted on FR, 4 years ago.

[HairOfTheDog]

I think it sounds more like an attempt to disrupt as a prank than a dry run for anything else... All they have accomplished is an increased vigilance by security to look for bags. The effect is not practice, it's shooting themselves in the foot.

[jimbo123]

http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-3/1082622026324880.xml

Missing gasoline tanker raises terror concerns

Thursday, April 22, 2004
By JIM SIX
Staff Writer

A gasoline tanker truck, like the one missing from Pennsauken for more than a week, could disappear in an area heavy with similar truck traffic -- but everyone's keeping a more vigilant eye out these days.

A 1996 Fruehauf tanker with "TK Transport" in large, green letters on its side and New Jersey license plate T852SC was last seen April 8.

The FBI and the state Office of Counterterrorism have issued bulletins to law enforcement agencies in New Jersey to look for the truck.

"It concerns us because we have a constant flow of gasoline and diesel fuel and jet fuel trucks coming into the township, maybe 200 a day, to the Valero (Refining Co.) terminal, where trucks are filled 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Greenwich Township Detective Sgt. Joseph Giordano Jr., who is also his town's counterterrorism officer.

"There are so many tankers coming in and out that it's hard to keep track of what we're seeing," he said. His township also has the Ramada Inn, where trucks are always parked, as well, he added.

"It wouldn't be hard to abandon a tanker there and it not be noticed unless we were looking for it," Giordano said.

"At Valero, they have so much equipment, they might have something parked and not know it's stolen," he said. He recalled a tractor-trailer being reported stolen from Valero once, only to have the company notify police months later that it had simply been misplaced inside the refinery.

Giordano said his concern is because the Valero site is one of very few where tankers can be filled with gasoline, diesel fuel or jet fuel.

"If there's some way they can get into the terminal and fill up with jet fuel, it's a very large bomb," he said.

Most truckers use a credit card system to enter the terminal and fill their tankers, he said. Giordano recalled one past incident in which $60,000 worth of jet fuel was taken with a stolen credit card.

Valero public relations consultant Claire P. Riggs said there are "multiple security systems in place to prevent someone from loading in an unauthorized manner." She said the only materials that could be loaded in the kind of tanker that's missing are gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and asphalt, lube oil and sulfur.

West Deptford Township Police Chief Jim Mehaffey said there are three trucking companies in his town that have tankers.

"Prior to 9-11, you wouldn't get much attention" to a tanker theft. Today it attracts much more attention "because of the potential of what you could do with one of these tankers," he said.

"You can hide some type of explosive in it and use it as a weapon of mass destruction," said Mehaffey.

"The tanker companies have been more responsible. They have more controls on these things now because of the potential risk they pose," he said.

[HairOfTheDog]

Why isn't the owner being fined somehow?

Fined for being robbed? Bizarre thinking.

[boycott]

Well, I think anyone wearing a towel on their head should be forced to leave the country or dropped in the ocean.

[John H K]

Where's the satellite surveillance for this?

You've been watching too many crappy spy thriller movies.

There's no such thing as sitting down and watching a movie taken from satellite of the entire earth's surface.

Satellites would be utterly and completely worthless for finding a tanker truck. For one thing, despite some of the overhyped stuff about satellite resolution, you couldn't tell one tanker truck from another, really.

The other thing is that we've only got a handful of satellites, basically you can take a snapshot of a given location on earth a couple times a day. And those shot locations are TINY, and have to be pre-planned. There's no daily high-resolution shot of, say, the State of New York to a scale small enough where you could find a tanker truck. The high-resolution swath of pics is extremely narrow.

[Joe 6-pack]

"They were NOT identical suitcases."

Sorry...just going by what was posted...

"NYPD and the FBI have found 5 empty identical suitcases in 5 different locations around NYC."

[My Favorite Headache]

LMFAO...please...tell me how you really feel?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

cheerleader pyramid

I still think that entire story sounds funky.

While ridicule no doubt occurs, you'd have to be an idiot, severely incapacitated, or Kirstie Alley to think no one would see the photographs.