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Terrorism hoaxes on the rise

Emergency Management Alert, February 1, 2005

Fake terrorism plots as a means of revenge are becoming a major problem for law enforcement agencies, the Boston Globe reported last week.

Anonymous tips that alleged six people smuggled in from Mexico planned a nuclear attack on Boston or that a terrorist wanted to blow up a New Jersey bridge set off intensive and costly investigations and caused public alarm. However, most turned out to be nothing than invented terrorist threats to seek revenge on an adversary.

The Boston threat made by a 34-year-old Mexican man, Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinonez, was reportedly to get back at associates in a smuggling ring.

'It's new in the terrorism context that people are using more extreme types of hoaxes to get revenge," Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, told the Globe. 'They're exploiting the concerns of a terrorist attack."

Statistics don't currently exist on the number of terrorism hoaxes as a means of revenge.

However, every time that someone intentionally provides false information it pulls investigators away from real threats, Joe Parris, a supervisory special agent for the FBI in Washington, told the Globe.

'Each instance of this is a problem," Paris said. 'It is tying up resources and alarming the public."

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