Yikes!

From the Denver Post:

Whoever sent a package with a disabled explosive device to Denver- based Janus Capital Group in late January could next send working bombs to financial-industry executives at home, a leading security expert has warned.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the next time we hear from him, we will see real devices. That is the frightening part,” said Fred Burton, vice president of counterterrorism for Stratfor in Austin, Texas.
Stratfor, also called Strategic Forecasting, is a corporate intelligence and risk-management company that has advised corporate clients targeted by the threatening letters.
The mailer, who identifies himself as “the Bishop,” has made escalating threats in a series of 15 known mailings sent over 18 months to financial- service firms, primarily in the Midwest, said Wanda Shipp, a postal inspector in Chicago.


They have a profile of him.

Burton has created a profile of the Bishop suspect, who he believes has only a high school education and spends a lot of time online.
Although the Bishop may be angry about losing money in the stock market, Burton thinks he may be playing out a game.
“It is also very feasible he is living in a virtual world. He is playing out a fantasy or PC game into reality,” Burton said.

Great. That describes about 84% of my readers.

Burton cited some possible sources of the Bishop’s name:
Lucas Bishop is a character introduced in the 1990s in the X-Men comic-book series who also can be played in a computer game. He is part of a mutant police force that returns from the future. His power involves absorbing energy and releasing it in concussive blasts.
In the 1972 movie “The Mechanic,” Charles Bronson played assassin Arthur Bishop. A line used in the movie, “Bang you’re dead,” has shown up in at least one letter under investigation by authorities.
“The Bishop” is the name of a book in the Stainless Steel Rat fiction series by author Harry Harrison.
Burton suspects the Bishop surveys his targets before mailing them. Although his letters contain primarily Illinois- based postmarks, some have been mailed from Florida and Iowa as well.
Unlike the mailings from the Unabomber and “green” terrorist groups, the letters aren’t overtly ideological or political, Burton said.
Some contain requests that the price of certain stocks be brought to $6.66, perhaps an allusion to the mark of the Antichrist mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.
Shipp said the Bishop has also referenced a quote first written by English poet John Milton: “It is better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”

Posted by on March 15th, 2007 at 12:48 pm


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