Hermiston’s Wal-Mart was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after an employee received a phone call from someone saying there was a bomb planted inside the store. A sweep of the store by Hermiston police found nothing.
Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said the phone call came in sometime after 2 p.m. The voice on the other end of the line was a male with what the employee described as a strong Arabic accent.
“The male demanded $500 be placed on a GreenDot card or else a bomb inside the store would be detonated,” said Edmiston. “Our officers responded and Wal-Mart management made the decision to evacuate the store. We assisted in sweeping the store and nothing was found.” The store was re-opened shortly after the search, said Edmiston.
Customers arriving at the store were told it was closed and police cars were lined up in front the store. Wal-Mart employees were gathered outside near McDonald’s waiting to be told they could return to work.
And while Edmiston was reluctant to call the incident a scam, Crime Prevention Officer Erica Sandoval did some research into similar incidents around the country.
“Our area seems to be the latest attempt of a larger scam that has been crossing the country since last year,” said Sandoval. She said the targets are typically big box stores such as Home Depot, CVS Pharmacies and K-Mart.
“The tactic is almost uniform in these incidents,” she said. “What sounds like a foreign-accented person – reports say Indian or Arabic accented – calls the store and reports that there is a bomb on the premises and demands that money be put on a loadable debit/ money card called Green Dot MoneyPak cards or the bomb will be detonated. The most common denomination is $500 and they demand that after the cards have been loaded that the numbers from the card be read to the person on the phone or the bomb will be detonated. This is a regular tactic used in similar scams with individuals. In the various articles I researched there has never been a bomb or anything looking like one located.”
