Replies

The List...updated:

Dallas, TX (October 2005, $60,000 worth)
Hemet, CA
Midland, TX
Grafton, West Virginia
Spearfish, SD
Marietta, OH
Nashville, TN
Caro, MI
Brownsville, TX
Monroeville, PA
Murrysville, PA
Uniontown, PA
Onalaska, WI (Bought out the TracFones. Walmart)
Viroqua, WI (Bought out TracFones and electric hair dryers. Walmart)
Sparta, WI (Sent there by Viroqua, Walmart for more electric hair dryers. Stated they needed a total of 15)

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 (Michigan) 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. WNEM

Adding Ithaca and Alma, Michigan

Spearfish, SD: The first week of August is Bike Week, when some 100,000 to 500,000 motorcyclists arrive at Sturgis, SD and the surrounding communities in and near the Black Hills.

It is no surprise, with the changes in rider demographics in the last 20 years that tracphone sales would surge, or that nonelectric curling iron sales would increase, either.

A lot of people still camp out in tents.

If you match location with dates, you may find other similar false positives.

Keep in mind that police officers from all over the country will moonlight their vacation at Sturgis as well, and may account for some 'early' tracphone sales as well. Phone network coverage is not as comprehensive in the region as folks from the coasts are used to.