The Maui Police Department is warning the public about a scam involving emails that state a bomb has been placed in/near the recipient’s business/office and that it will go off unless payment is made to the sender.

According to police, the sender instructs the recipient to make payment to a Bitcoin wallet address that is included in the email. The sender also claims that someone is watching the building and if there is any evacuation or police response they will detonate the bomb.

Police say they received reports of the scam occurring on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018 and say it affected private businesses and public/government offices throughout Maui County.

All incidents that were reported in Maui County were investigated by police and found to be false threats. The emails were traced back to servers outside the state of Hawaiʻi, which was consistent with other incidents that occurred elsewhere in the state today.

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Police say these emails are part of a larger scam attempting to extort money via Bitcoin from across the United States.

The Maui Police Department advises the public to treat all threats cautiously and to call the police if they believe the threat to be legitimate at (808) 244-6400 or 9-1-1 in an emergency.

Questions about this or any other scam can be directed to the Criminal Investigation Division Cyber Crime Unit at (808) 244-6313 or email [email protected]