Since the attack on the World Trade Center on Tuesday, Manhattan has faced hundreds of phony bomb threats at train stations, offices and schools. Each sends throngs of employees and schoolchildren into the street.
“We’ve been averaging about 100 a day since the bombing. On the day prior to that, we had seven,” said Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
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Not long after New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani vowed Friday to catch those responsible, police announced the first arrest: A 34-year-old man in Queens faces federal charges for calling in a threat to a junior high school.
Suspected frauds have led to other arrests as well. Authorities have arrested several people for posing as rescuers or using false identification to enter closed recovery areas. A retired corrections officer is charged with stealing $3,000 of watches from a shuttered jewelry store.
Even more brazen, Kerik said, a frantic woman in medical scrubs appeared at a police station, saying she had received a cell phone call from her husband buried in rubble.
“It was all fake . . . There was no husband. There was no call,” Kerik said at a press conference.
The woman faces charges of reckless endangerment, obstructing fire operations and filing false reports.
State and local officials also are warning the elderly against a suspicious telemarketing campaign.
The state Consumer Protection Board issued a warning after an undisclosed number of elderly New York citizens reported receiving phone calls in recent days that asked for donations and, in some cases, Social Security numbers.
“We are unaware of any legitimate group soliciting donations,” said New York Gov. George Pataki, who urged donors to contribute to the New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund.
Many with missing relatives are turning to the Web for information, but instead finding haphazard and unreliable lists of survivors.
Relatives of missing financial analyst Walter Matuza, 39, of Staten Island had hoped for good news online. Instead, what they found was a “survivors’ list” with nothing but thousands of names, including those of former President Bill Clinton and militant Osama bin Laden.
“The lists are totally bogus,” said Matuza’s brother-in-law, Phil DePalma. “It makes me sick that someone would do anything to make this worse.”
A grocer in Mahopac, N.Y., 60 miles north of Manhattan, alerted authorities after a smiling woman with a child by her side began appearing at local stores, flashing a card with a red cross on it and asking for donations.
“When I pushed her on it, she said she had $850 already,” said Ron Jedlicka, owner of the Red Mills Market. “I happen to have several friends involved in the Red Cross here, and when I called them, they said there was no soliciting like that at all.”