The FBI is on our case!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, not really, but now that I have your attention....

Had an interesting situation come up yesterday. LP got a call from the store 25 miles away to look out for some well-dressed guys in suits coming in to purchase Trac Phones. When this store calls us to tell us they had no-goodniks come through, we listen, because they almost always come and try to hit us next.

Normally, people buying tracfones would not raise an eyebrow, but supposedly these guys are being investigated by the FBI and they wanted us to see if we could track them down.

Sure shit, a little while later two guys in suits came in and headed straight for the tracphones. They both purchased as many tracphones as they could (we have a limit of 2 tracphones per customer. In case you don't know, tracphones are untraceable and very disposable, making them popular with criminals) The LP lady got them on camera (she said the image is so good we can see their nose hairs). Then she got in her car and drove around the parking lot until she saw them returning to their car. She parked nearby and got their license plate number. The guys opened their trunk and she said it was completely crammed full with tracphones.

A short time later, two more guys in suits entered the store. They also purchased tracphones; however LP did not get them on camera.

So I figure we are dealing with either:
-mobsters, or
-explosives experts, to put it gently. It is possible to detonate a bomb simply by dialing a phone number. Don't ask me how.

And I missed all this excitement because I was outside.

[JustADude]

It is possible to detonate a bomb simply by dialing a phone number. Don't ask me how.

Use an electrically detonated explosive, such as the infamous C-4, yank the wires going to the speaker out and stick it in the goods. When you call the phone, the current going to the speakers runs through the explosives instead and you get a REALLY loud ring-tone on one hell of a vibrate.

This is courtesy of a friend in Air Force EOD (Explosives/Ordinance Disposal, IIRC) that I happened to be IMing while I was reading the boards.

[KaeZoo]

So I figure we are dealing with either:
-mobsters, or
-explosives experts, to put it gently. It is possible to detonate a bomb simply by dialing a phone number. Don't ask me how.

Nothing so sinister. What you're probably dealing with are fraud artists. They buy prepaid cellular phones at a discounted price (phones from prepaid services are sold below cost, because the company expects to make money through sales of prepaid minutes). They hack the phones' built-in software so they can be used with other wireless providers. They then re-sell the phones for a profit.

[Caveat Emptor]

Israeli intelligence killed a top Hamas explosives engineer using the bomb-in-a-cell-phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash

[blas]

IPF.........it's very unlikely you are dealing with mobsters and terrorists....I know the imagination can run wild in situations like these, but most likely, if they are anything like the tracfone nazis where I live, they are just huge drug lords hoarding cocaine or methamphetamines and trying to desperately cover their tracks.

We have the DTF or whatever it's called nowadays in both the city I live in and the city I used to live in. They drive around in huge black SUV type vehicles and wear suits and investigate drug lords.

My roomate told me that about a week before I moved in, a huge black Suburban and multiple police cars, a fire truck, and the Hazmat vehicle all made an appearance at the complex next door and a big meth dealer was taken down.

[TNT]

Israeli intelligence killed a top Hamas explosives engineer using the bomb-in-a-cell-phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash

Yeah... but Israeli intelligence (the very best in the business) vs. Hamas is far different from a local yokel buying Trac phones.

I mention this only because my small town, small potatoes, courthouse has this thing against cell phones in the building. They deputy's used to hold them for visitors, but not anymore... this has lead people to burying them in the flower pots outside the building. That, of course, had led to thieves knowing that visitors to the courthouse are burying their cell phones in the flower pots outside the building...

There's only one thing worse than living in a tiny, low-rent city... and that's living in a tiny, low-rent city that has an overinflated sense of its importance on the international scene.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

IPF.........it's very unlikely you are dealing with mobsters and terrorists....I know the imagination can run wild in situations like these, but most likely, if they are anything like the tracfone nazis where I live, they are just huge drug lords hoarding cocaine or methamphetamines and trying to desperately cover their tracks.

I didn't think of that. Maybe I should go watch Scarface again.