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Calgary police are investigating after a number of schools across the city received emails last week demanding an online currency known as Bitcoin and threatening to detonate explosive devices at certain schools if the money was not received.

While police have determined the threats are not legitimate, an increased number of police officers are being stationed at the affected schools and letters have been sent home to students and parents.

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“We enacted all of our safety protocols. We have enhanced presence of uniform officers at the schools, we’ll be doing patrols, the schools will be checked regularly,” said Calgary Police Service spokesman Kevin Brookwell on Tuesday.

Brookwell said police received an email on Feb. 5 that made threats against certain Calgary public, private and Catholic schools. Subsequent similar emails were also sent to some of the schools.

“We’ve determined at this point that there is no validity to these threats,” he said.

The emails involved a virtual currency known as Bitcoins.

“There were threats made that their would be explosive devices detonated at certain schools at certain times if a certain amount of Bitcoin currency was not put into an account,” Brookwell said.