Calgary police say 15 bomb threats across city 'not credible'

Bomb threats emailed to at least 15 businesses in Calgary — similar to threats made across North America on Thursday — are part of a phishing scam and not considered credible, police say.

The first call came into Calgary's 911 about 11:30 a.m. from a business saying they received an emailed threat.

While officers were investigating that, other calls started coming into 911 with similar complaints.

A total of 15 calls were made to 911, but police believe several more emails were received.

The emails contained unspecified threats and demanded a payment in Bitcoin.

Calgary police worked with law enforcement agencies from across North America to determine the emails were fake, said Insp. Melanie Oncescu.

"CPS is not aware of any person or business that actually transferred funds and fell victim to this scam," she said.

"The investigation is still ongoing because we have yet to determine the source, and we still need to assess whether or not there's more individuals out there that have received this email.

"But in terms of establishing that it's a phishing scam, [it] was the volume and the number of individuals across North America that have received this same email."

The businesses that received the email were "completely random," said Oncescu, and none were evacuated.

Anyone who received an email but didn't report it to police is asked to save it and call the non-emergency line at 403-266-1234.