At 03:27 PM 4/15/02, Jeroen van Baardwijk wrote: >"you ain't much if you ain't Dutch"
Uh-huh . . . Dutch teen prankster called in bomb scare, official says WASHINGTON (CNN) --The public prosecutor's office in the Netherlands said a phone call warning of a bomb plot that led to the temporary closing of several large banks in the U.S. capital Monday was a teen-age prank. Wim de Bruin, spokesman in the Amsterdam office, said police in the Netherlands had questioned a 13-year-old boy, who admitted he called in the threat as a joke. The teen-ager is not in custody and has not been charged, Bruin said. The FBI investigated but said in a statement that it did not "assign a high degree of credibility to this call." The caller told police there was a plot to bomb a national bank in the center of Washington at noon Monday, government sources said. That time passed without incident. The call came through a Canadian operator. The caller said he was told of the plot by an informant. According to sources, the caller was asked several questions and provided specific information regarding the type of explosive that was going to be used. The information was distributed to banks because of the "specificity of information provided" despite its misgivings about the validity of the call, the FBI said. The FBI recommended vigilance by bank personnel and said "normal security and notification procedures should be followed," but some banks, including SunTrust, Citibank and Riggs, closed their Washington offices. The banks were expected to reopen Monday afternoon. -- CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena and Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report Find this article at: <http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/04/15/bomb.bank.plot/index.html>
