Mr. Schiff: Hello
I’m Neal Schiff
and welcome to Inside the FBI, a weekly podcast
about news, cases and operations. Today we’re
talking about threat letters and billboards,
digital billboards, to help catch dangerous
fugitives. We talked with the Chief of the
FBI’s National Press Office, Special
Agent Rich Kolko, about threatening letters
sent recently to financial institutions…
Mr. Kolko: ”Well starting on Monday
a series of letters were received at Chase
banks in just a couple of states. And what’s
happened over the last three days they’ve
gotten over 50 of these letters, mostly at
Chase Bank and the Office of Thrift Supervision.
It’s in over 11 states right now.”
Mr. Schiff: Any specific areas of the country
or just spread across the lower 48 states?
Mr. Kolko: It really
is coast to coast. We’ve had them
from California to New York down to Georgia,
Texas; it covers a
wide area of the country. The issue here
is the letters have an implied threat which
can be very scary to the person that is opening
it. Included in that is a powdered substance.”
Mr. Schiff: This can create another situation.
Agents and police officers not working elsewhere.
Kolko says this is a big concern…
Mr. Kolko: “So what we have occurring
now, there has to be a law enforcement response.
The FBI shows up; the U.S. Postal Inspectors
show up; local police; fire; Hazmat crews.
And they have to secure this powder; they
are doing some field tests on it. The field
tests so far have fortunately been negative
so nobody has been hurt. After that they
have to secure the powder. It gets sent off
to a regionally accredited lab for further
testing; we’ll get results of that
pretty soon. One of the problems here, though,
and people try to say, ‘You know, they
sent a letter; not that big of a deal.’ But
that big law enforcement I talked about,
they all have to show up at this bank. And
that takes them off the street so they are
not doing their regular job. This isn’t
just an inconvenience to the bank and the
customers, it really affects the whole city
that they’re in.”
Mr. Schiff: What does the letter say?
Mr. Kolko: “Well, the later verbatim
says ‘Steal tens of thousands of people’s
money and not expect reprercussions. It’s
payback time. What you just breathed in will
kill you within 10 days. Thank (and we redacted
the name here) and the FDIC for your demise.’ And
these letters all are postmarked from Amarillo,
Texas. So, as FBI agents, that’s certainly
a clue for somewhere to start. But that doesn’t
necessarily mean that the person came from
Amarillo. But it certainly is part of the
investigation.”
Mr. Schiff: What is the FBI’s role
in the investigation? What are we doing?
How are we going about looking at this and
who is the FBI working with?
Mr. Kolko: “Well, since 9/11 and since
the days of the anthrax attacks in the United
States the FBI has really concentrated on
these WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) issues.
We have a Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate;
they have an Operations Unit that operates
right here at Headquarters. In each of our
56 field offices we also have a WMD coordinator.
So they work closely together each time there
is one of these incidents. Interesting enough,
over the past two-years, the FBI has responded
to over 900 of these threat letters. And
when I say they’ve responded to the
threat letters, that means there has to be
a threat letter with the powder. We’ve
all heard of those innocent ones where someone
spills some sugar on the table and someone
calls the police. I’m not even counting
those. But that means this has been a large
problem across the country for the last few
years.”
Mr. Schiff: What can people do to help in
trying to solve this dilemma?
Mr. Kolko: “That’s a good point.
And that’s the reason that on fbi.gov
we posted a sample of the letter and the
envelope. We have a bunch of good leads that
we’re following right now but we want
to encourage additional leads. So we want
people to take a look at that letter. If
you recognize the writing style or if something
makes you think it could be tied to someone
you are familiar with, we want you to pick
up the phone, call the FBI; go to fbi.gov
where you can submit an anonymous tip; call
the postal inspectors; local police; whatever
it takes. Try and get that information to
us. And very importantly, just on Wednesday
the postal inspectors offered a $100,000
reward.”
Mr. Schiff: Everybody watches TV and sees
a lot of the law enforcement programs and
cases get solved in a short period of time.
Forensics take awhile; they don’t take
an hour? Is that right?
Mr. Kolko: “Yeah, there’s a
CSI aspect in courtrooms these days. People
got used to a crime being solved in 45 minutes.
So, between the field investigation that
will occur at each of the banks, the laboratory
testing at the regional labs, then the FBI
lab farther down the road, the leads, the
tracking down the envelopes, tracking down
the letters, this could turn into a fairly
significant and, we hope, not lengthy investigation.
It’s important that this person be
identified, arrested and prosecuted quickly
so we can put a stop to this.”
Mr. Schiff: And the FBI’s Laboratory
Division plays a role?
Mr. Kolko: “Absolutely. The FBI’s
Laboratory Division helps with the field
testing. They help with the coordination
with conference calls that happens each time
one of these occur. And then they’ll
be the final stop, the last step of the testing
in this process.”
Mr. Schiff: If anyone listening has any
information about any of this, what should
they do?
Mr. Kolko: “Simple. Call 1-800-Call-FBI;
tell the person what you know. If you are
in front of your computer, just go to fbi.gov
and you can submit a tip and you can do it
anonymously. You can tell us your name. It’s
your choice. But everyone should have an
interest in this to see that this comes to
a stop and we hope that the person that has
the information will take the time to give
us the call.”
Mr. Schiff: Publicity about fugitives is
important. When law enforcement gets the
word out, you have the chance to help find
the bad guys and get them off the streets.
Recently the FBI and the Clear Channel company
worked together in having fugitive’s
pictures and descriptive data placed on digital
billboards and FBI Assistant Director of
Public Affairs, John Miller, joins us…
Mr. Miller: “‘These,’ as
the Oldsmobile commercial used to say, ‘are
not your father’s billboards.’ I
mean when I was growing up billboards meant
it was something men came and painted and
it stayed there for long time and after a
couple of years someone painted over it.
With electronic billboards, they have now
brought the kind of immediacy that you would
get from television or radio or the Internet.
It’s outdoor advertising. Which means
if a child goes missing, the Amber Alerts
that we got used to seeing on the highway
signs which basically were constructed to
tell us about traffic delays, now can be
on the big advertising billboards not just
along the highways but the major roads and
streets of a city. So, if a child is missing,
we can get that up on a network of billboards
and target it not just where the child disappeared
from, but if we have information, let’s
say it’s a parental kidnapping, and
the mother or the father has taken him from
city A to city B, we can put those pictures
and a hotline number up in City A. We can
also do in City B even though it’s
on the other side of the country.”
Mr. Schiff: In Philadelphia, FBI Special
Agent Bill Shute helped get some digital
billboards up to get the word to motorists
and pedestrians…
Mr. Shute: “Well, we’re always
trying to look for new ways to get the FBI’s
name out there; always looking for new ways
to get publicity for the cases that we’re
working. And under the initiative and eyes
of Step Up, Speak Up, we’re trying
to encourage the public to step up and speak
up about what they see or what they hear.
We were able to make this initiative happen
and try to encourage the public, basically
with these billboards in high traffic areas,
to convince the public to call the FBI not
with only information about wanted fugitives,
but basically creating a public awareness
campaign that the FBI is willing to hear
your information.”
Mr. Schiff: And Shute, who worked with the
FBI’s Community Outreach staff, says
these brightly lit and colorful digital billboards
can rotate pictures and information…
Mr. Shute: “And what it does is it
routinely rotates between images approximately
every four to five seconds. What you’re
getting is constant images that a motorist
can see, you know, probably up to a quarter-mile
away they could see it as they’re driving
up to it.”
Mr. Schiff: Back to FBI Assistant Director
John Miller. He says the advertising industry
gets this…
Mr. Miller: “From
the first time we did it with an outdoor
advertising company,
another and another and another and said, ‘We
want to join in the effort. These are the
cities where are billboards are. How do we
help.’"
Mr. Schiff: In Chicago, a digital billboard
led to the surrender of a dangerous gang
member wanted by the FBI and Chicago Police.
FBI Special Agent Ross Rice in Chicago…
Mr. Rice: “We
have been looking for an individual named
Donnell Jehan, whose
street name was Scandalous or Scan since
May of 2004.”
Mr. Schiff: And it didn’t take long
for the billboard to work…
Mr. Rice: “Jehan’s
was the first and within a few days of
his case being profiled
he surrendered to the Chicago Police.”
Mr. Schiff: Please keep in mind that if
you know anything about a criminal or a criminal
act or illegal activity, give the FBI a call,
the number is in the front of your phone
book. You may also file a report online at
www.fbi.gov. That concludes our show. Thanks
for listening. I’m Neal Schiff of the
FBI’s Office of Public Affairs.
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