Thousands Respond to Interne Magnet's Bin Laden Reward Offer
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Flamboyant German Internet millionaire Kim Schmitz said on Friday he had received thousands of tips from around the world in response to his offer of a $10 million reward for information on the terror attacks in the U.S.
Schmitz, a 27-year-old ex-hacker turned capital investor and a relentless self-promoter, said: ``Of course, we cannot say what's true or not...but we will forward all of it to the FBI (news - web sites).'' Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Cindy McCraw in Washington, D.C., said she could not comment on how useful the tips might be without having seen them, and said she was not familiar with Schmitz.
``But any tips, we'll take a look at,'' McCraw told Reuters.
Schmitz launched a campaign on Wednesday to get information about Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), suspected by U.S. authorities as having coordinated the attacks in Washington and New York that killed thousands.
One tip received by e-mail at Schmitz's site read: ``Try looking in the city of Kandahar in the country of Afghanistan (news - web sites)...he visits his wife and daughter there at least once a month.''
Schmitz said in the last 24 hours he had received 10,000 e-mails, nearly 1,545,000 visitors to his Web page (www.kimble.org) and that 4,500 other Web pages had been linked to the section of his page describing the reward.
U.S. investigators have set up Web pages (www.ifccfbi.gov) and hotlines to help in the massive investigation into Tuesday's coordinated attacks, in which hijackers flew planes into key U.S. landmarks in New York and Washington.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) named bin Laden as a suspect on Thursday, but investigators said at least 50 people in the United States were involved in coordinating the attacks.
Schmitz was convicted of computer hacking in 1998 and has since made a fortune in computer security consulting. He is reported to be worth about $200 million. |
