Red Ventures receives three bomb threats

A string of bomb threats called into an Indian Land business over the last two weeks have authorities searching for the culprit.
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the case after the first call came into Internet marketing and sales firm Red Ventures on Jan. 19. Since then, two more calls, on Jan. 20 and Jan. 30, have disrupted the business, located at 1101 521 Corporate Center Drive. All three calls were made at similar times to the company’s sales center, between 11:20 a.m. and 12:45 p.m.
“The first two took place back-to-back, two days in a row, and we think those may be the same person,” said sheriff’s office Maj. Matt Shaw. “We’re not sure about the last we had this week, but we think at least some of them are related.”
The company received a similar threat between three and four months ago, though Shaw said he did not know if that call was also related.
Deputies have conducted searches of the building after some of the calls, through Shaw said nothing dangerous has been found. He said the decision to evacuate after a bomb threat is left up to the particular business.
“In this case, this business has evacuated a few times, but last time they did not,” he said.
Deputies have traced the phone calls back to pay phones in Charlotte. Shaw said investigators aren’t sure who is making the calls, though he’s confident the threats were not made on a whim.
“These are not random. We think it’s somebody who has a bone to pick with Red Ventures. Our assumption is it may be a terminated employee,” he said.
Investigators are poring over a list of possible suspects, though Shaw said it could take some time to go through them all.
“This is a company with over 1,000 employees and people come and go on a pretty regular basis, so we don’t have a small list,” he said. “It’s an ongoing investigation. We’ve got one of our investigators assigned to that and he is the lead investigator in all those cases.”
If a suspect is found, Shaw said the person could be charged under a state statute making it illegal to call in a bomb threat.
“There’s no doubt somebody could be charged,” he said.
Kylie Craig, spokeswoman for Red Ventures, confirmed that the company has received several calls, but would not comment extensively about the case.
“We’ve had some threatening calls come into our sales center and we’re working with police because the safety of our employees is a top priority,” she said. “But there really aren’t any other developments.”