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“Pay $20,000 worth of bitcoin, or a bomb will detonate in your building”

A massive number of businesses, schools, government offices and individuals across the US, New Zealand and Canada on Thursday received bomb threats via emails that caused nationwide chaos, forcing widespread evacuations and police response.

The bomb threat emails were apparently sent by spammers, threatening people that someone has planted bombs within their building that will be detonated unless a bitcoin payment of $20,000 is paid by the end of the business day.

“I write to inform you that my man has carried the bomb (Tetryl) into the building where your business is located,” one of the emails posted to social media read.

“It was assembled according to my instructions. It can be hidden anywhere because of its small size, it cannot damage the supporting building structures, but there will be many victims in case of its explosion.”

“You must pay me by the end of the working day, and if you are late with the transaction the bomb will explode.”

“This is just a business, if I do not see the bitcoins and a bomb detonates, other companies will transfer me more money, because it isn’t a single case,” the message continued.

However, the threat was appeared to be hoax ransom ploys for bitcoin payment, numerous law enforcement departments issued alerts notifying citizens after no actual explosives were found.

images from Hacker News