1960: My uncle is the FBI Director

Chapter 126 At that time, the family was repairing the water pipes.
After handing the package to the flight attendant, Agent Lombardi walked to the center of the carriage and sat down next to a large bald man.

The bald man was one of his agents, disguised as a passenger, and was engrossed in reading a copy of the DC Post.

Agent Lombardi whispered a few words and then got up and left.

Shortly after he left, the bald man put away his newspaper, moved to a more comfortable position in front of the temporary storage area, and took out a magazine to read.

Agent Lombardi moved back and forth in the carriages, adjusting the positions of the plainclothes agents, and only got off when the train was about to depart.

The two passengers with green packages who were ahead of him in line did not get off the train. With the reminder from the train attendant, the two were somewhat flustered. After hesitating for a while after reaching the door, they returned to the carriage.

With a whistling sound, the train bound for Pittsburgh departed Union Station.

The passengers who came to see the train off stood there and watched it disappear before leaving in twos and threes.

The platform quickly became empty, leaving only the platform team of agents.

The agents gathered around Agent Lombardi and returned to the station.

Agent Lombardi's expression was not good.

He first briefed the agents on the situation inside the carriage, and then explained the green package and the "part-time job" of the train attendants.

Many people don't understand these things.

For example, Theodore and Bernie.

Agent Lombardi suspects that Bernie may not be the only victim of fraud.

He led his agents to the railway freight supervisor and asked to inspect the green parcel register.

The railway freight supervisor at the Union Station was a middle-aged man with a big belly. He was round and had a round head. He also had a shaved head that was shiny and didn't look fierce. Instead, he looked somewhat simple and honest.

When they arrived, the railway freight manager was eating donuts, taking three bites each.

Agent Lombardi explained his purpose, and the chubby freight manager licked his fingers and pulled out a greasy register from a drawer.

After handing the register to Agent Lombardi, he enthusiastically offered the agents a donut to try.

Seeing that no one accepted, the freight manager stuffed the donut into his mouth, took a big gulp of coffee, and showed an expression of enjoyment.

Agent Lombardi turned to the latest page of the register, which contained only a green package from the Veterans Affairs Bureau registered around 10 a.m., destined for New York.

The three green packages in Pittsburgh Car 3 were not recorded in the register.

After saying goodbye to the chubby freight manager, the group returned to headquarters.

Supervisor Rosen didn't take the matter seriously at first. When Agent Lombardi came to report, he thought the man had already been caught.

As it turned out, Agent Lombardi told him that not only had the man not been caught, but things were also more complicated than he had thought.

Two other government employees may have been blackmailed.

There has been no word from the train crew yet, but given the current unexpected situation, Supervisor Rosen felt that they couldn't just wait for news from the train crew.

He paused for a moment, then instructed Agent Lombardi to fill out an application form for Federal Communications Commission Order No. 74.

Federal Communications Commission Order 74 explicitly requires AT&T and its subsidiaries to cooperate with law enforcement agencies by providing raw data from their switches.

Order 74 does not require an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); a copy must be submitted to the FCC for backup.

Once you obtain the authorization and approval of Order No. 74, you can obtain the telephone branch office to which the caller belongs, and then find the registration information of the caller's telephone.

Supervisor Rosen and Agent Lombardi were both very efficient, but it was already past 4 p.m. when the authorization for Decree 74 was issued.

At this time, many department employees are already slacking off and waiting to leave work.

Agent Lombardi contacted AT&T by phone and received a response after an hour's wait.

The caller is from DC-17 telephone exchange.

DC-17 telephone exchange is the Union Station exchange, and according to AT&T statistics, it has approximately 1700 telephones.

When a user makes a call and picks up the receiver, the line relay at the local telephone exchange will trigger a pulse signal.

The signal is transmitted to the main relay station via copper cable and a branch office code is generated on the electromechanical counter.

Just like early computer punched paper tape, the code was punched onto the punched card in the form of a combination of indentations.

When the user starts dialing, the number will leave a mark on the card in the form of pulses.

To trace the calling telephone number, it is necessary to manually inspect the punch cards of 1700 telephones to find the card that left the pulse corresponding to the new office number.

Even with detailed call times, this would still be a massive undertaking.

It's impossible to finish in at least an hour.

At this point, both Agent Lombardi and Supervisor Rosen felt like they were in a bind.

If it were a kidnapping and extortion case, no amount of attention from the entire FBI team would be excessive.

But it was just a scam call.

Bernie and his family were not harmed in any substantial way; he was simply harassed.

This significantly reduces the severity of the situation.

This makes it difficult for the FBI to take it seriously.

If we elevate this to a certain level, it would seem like making a mountain out of a molehill.

Originally, according to Supervisor Rosen's plan, the two teams of detectives would go out and catch the fraudsters red-handed, and the matter would be over.

Unfortunately, the fraudsters had no intention of following Director Rosen's script.

He didn't even show up at Union Station.

Caught in a dilemma, Theodore took over the case.

After returning to headquarters from Union Station, he continued to try to profile the fraudsters.

He discovered that fraudsters seemed to be severely underestimated.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the fraudsters skillfully kept the severity of the situation at a level that made everyone uncomfortable.

This case gives the impression that if one takes it seriously and pays attention, everything will be resolved.

Theodore had reservations about this.

He suspected that even if he got serious, he still wouldn't be able to catch the fraudster.

Supervisor Rosen approved Theodore's application.

Agent Lombardi hesitated.

He felt that doing so was a bit like bullying someone.

He placed the authorization document of Decree 74 on the table, earnestly reminding Theodore that he could come to him anytime if he needed help.

Agent Lombardi also patted Theodore on the shoulder and hugged Bernie.

Theodore looked puzzled, suspecting that Agent Lombardi might have misunderstood something.

Back in his office, he took out his notebook, flipped through it, dialed a number, and asked the person on the other end to check the caller's phone.

After get off work in the afternoon, Bernie originally planned to meet with the renovation company to discuss the renovation plan for the house.

But after the scam call, Bernie and the renovation company rescheduled their appointment for next week.

Around 10 p.m., Theodore received a phone call from Pittsburgh in his apartment.

The agents from the train crew took the train to Pittsburgh and arrested the train attendant who took the package, along with two other passengers who had argued with the attendant.

The two passengers boarded at DC, and two of the green packages among the bags taken by the flight attendant belonged to them.

The flight attendant had five packages in total. Three of them were green, all from DC, and the other two were regular packages. The agents inspected the packages; one of the regular packages contained bullets and a handgun, and the other contained medicine.

Both packages were marked with return addresses and have been handed over to the Pittsburgh Police Department for processing.

Of the other three green packages, the one Agent Lombardi placed contained a stack of waste paper, while the other two each contained $5 in cash.

The agents conducted a brief interrogation of the flight attendant.

The flight attendant is quite well-known in the 'part-time' field, and many individuals or groups ask him to help them sell goods.

Two days ago, he received a call from DC asking him to help carry an anonymous green package that he boarded in DC to Pittsburgh, and then back to DC to put it in locker number 103 at Union Station.

The agents obtained the key to coin locker number 103 from the flight attendant.

The flight attendant has been in this line of work for over a decade, has an excellent reputation, and has never had a record of opening or losing a bag, making her highly trusted.

This excellent record was broken by the detectives in the carriage. Now, not only has he lost his package, but he has also revealed the sender's identity.

The agents had a brief conversation with the other two.

Both men were government employees; one was from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the other from the Veterans Affairs Bureau.

Upon learning the agents' identities, the two became emotionally distraught and nearly suffered a mental breakdown.

They all claimed to have received ransom calls from kidnappers demanding that they put $5 in cash into a green package from Western Union Telegraph and place it in car number 3 of a train bound for Pittsburgh.

After receiving the extortion call, they tried to contact their family members but were unable to reach them, which confirmed that their family members had indeed been kidnapped.

They dared not call the police, fearing the kidnappers would kill the hostage. They hurriedly prepared the ransom and, as the kidnappers demanded, put the hostage into carriage number 3 of the train bound for Pittsburgh.

The two men believed that the agents had disrupted the ransom deal and might anger the kidnappers, potentially leading to the deaths of their families.

After obtaining the basic information, the agents contacted headquarters to prepare to report the situation to Agent Lombardi.

After learning that the case had been handed over to Theodore, I obtained the number of Theodore's apartment and reported it to him.

Theodore instructed them to bring the flight attendant, along with two other people, back to DC the next day.

The next day, Saturday.

Theodore and Bernie chose to work overtime.

AT&T has reported that they have identified the caller's phone as DC-1708.

This is a public telephone located on the east side of the entrance to Union Station.

AT&T found the FBI's new office number in yesterday's pulse recordings from DC-1708, confirming that the scammers did indeed make the call from there.

Before calling the new office, DC-1708 was used to make eight other phone calls.

These eight phone calls have many similarities to the call made in the new office.

They are very close together, with intervals of no more than half a minute between them, and each call lasts very short, no more than 2 minutes.

They are all government agency telephone numbers.

Most importantly, yesterday, when DC-1708 dialed these nine numbers, it submitted J-7 fault reports.

AT&T technicians explained to the two men:
"The meaning of J-7 malfunction is counterfeit money blockage. When someone inserts counterfeit money, a J-7 malfunction report will be submitted."

Bernie questioned, "It's impossible for someone to insert counterfeit money nine times in a row; counterfeit money can't make phone calls."

The technicians fell silent.

Bernie didn't make things difficult for the other party, but simply asked them to bring the punch card of DC-1708 and those J-7 malfunction reports for evidence registration.

The two sides met at the entrance of Union Station.

Bernie pulled the technician aside and whispered something to him. The technician, looking embarrassed, pulled out a coin and demonstrated to them another type of J-7 malfunction report.

It was a magnetized coin.

The technician inserted the magnetized coin halfway into the coin slot and waited a short while before the public phone made a clicking sound as if the spring had missed its mark.

That's the telephone's coin return mechanism being activated.

The instant the spring clicked, he quickly pulled back the coin, then dialed a number with lightning speed and handed the receiver to Bernie.

After a brief hissing sound, a voice came through the receiver: "This is the DC Police Department's First Precinct..."

Bernie put down the receiver and looked at the technician.

The technician grinned, somewhat smugly.

He didn't reveal the specific principle, only telling the two that it was a free call method known only to internal technical staff, and that it was very difficult for outsiders to succeed.

He also mentioned the drawbacks of this free calling method: each call can only last for 3 minutes.

In DC, local calls at public phone booths are limited to 3 minutes each; if the time limit is exceeded, coins must be inserted.

After explaining, the technician took out his tools, opened the coin box, collected the coins inside, symbolically inspected the telephone, waved to the two men, and left.

Theodore stood in front of the telephone and looked around. All he could see were crowds of people and cars.

There seem to be many eyewitnesses, but in reality, no one pays any attention to this place.

As for fingerprint extraction, that's out of the question.

From yesterday to today, I don't know how many people have explored this phone booth.

In the afternoon, the detectives from the carriage crew returned with the train attendant and two government employees who had been scammed.

The two government employees looked haggard and had blank stares.

They still maintain that FBI agents killed their family members.

Theodore stared at the two men for a while before deciding to hand them over to Bernie.

He felt that there was a reason why the scammers chose these two people.

He even had an impulse to become a fraudster himself.

Theodore had never imagined that people in this era were so easily fooled.

They would rather believe the kidnappers would release their family after receiving the money than believe their family members had not been kidnapped...

Bernie didn't say much to the two men; he simply dialed their home numbers.

After a short wait, both calls were answered.

The two held the phone, overjoyed and weeping, and hurriedly asked why no one had answered the phone yesterday noon.

One person said a plumber had come to repair the pipes at their home, but they didn't hear the phone ring.

Another person said that he went out to buy blueberry jam and missed the call.

After ending their calls with their families, the two men had different expressions.

The plumber didn't look too happy.

The other man looked at him sympathetically and patted him on the shoulder on each side.

Theodore pushed the paper and pen over and asked the two to identify eight more sets of numbers provided by AT&T.

The two of them each selected their work phone numbers from the list.

They also provided the details of the extortion call, which were not much different from Bernie Naton's.

The only difference is the amount of money demanded.

The ransom calls demanded $5,000 from both men, but $20,000 from Bernie.

(End of this chapter)