CLEVELAND (AP) – The FBI is looking overseas for suspects who have phoned bomb threats to more than 24 grocery stores, banks and discount stores in 15 states, including at least six new cases Friday in Ohio.

One target this week was a Hannaford store in Millinocket, Maine.

The callers threaten to set off a bomb unless store employees wire money to an account overseas. At a Dillons grocery store in Hutchinson, Kan., the caller ordered customers and workers to take off their clothes and threatened to force them to cut off a manager’s fingers.

Store workers have been so frightened in four or five cases that they’ve wired thousands of dollars to the caller. Authorities in Buchanan, Mich., said workers at a Harding’s Market sent $3,000 to an account in Portugal.

The FBI is examining those wire transactions and is working with authorities in Europe to locate possible suspects.

“We’ve got some pretty good leads,” said FBI spokesman Rich Kolko in Washington. “Up to this point these are hoaxes … I think folks are catching on and not sending the money.”

Four bomb threats were made Friday morning to three grocery stores and a Wal-Mart in northeast Ohio. The threats were phoned in around 6 a.m. to a Wal-Mart and Giant Eagle in Mentor and Giant Eagle stores in neighboring Mentor-on-the-Lake and in Green, south of Akron, authorities said.

The stores were evacuated, but they reopened within two or three hours after police found no explosives.

“We believe these are all tied into the same individual or group of individuals that are doing this all over the United States,” said FBI special agent Scott Wilson in Cleveland.

In southwest Ohio, a Bigg’s grocery store and a U.S. Bank branch in suburban Cincinnati also received threats Friday.

FBI spokesman Michael Brooks declined to say how many threats there were in the Cincinnati area. He said investigators were trying to determine whether they were tied to similar threats across the country.

Complicating the investigation are apparent copycat threats. Criminal intelligence analysts are examining police reports to identify similarities in the calls.

“The issue now is determining which ones are tied to the original group of threats,” Kolko said. “We still believe they’re ongoing.”

The FBI believes that among the stores and banks that have been targeted are a Hannaford supermarket in Millinocket, Maine; a credit union in Albuquerque, N.M.; a Safeway store in Sandy, Ore.; a grocery store in Buchanan, Mich.; Wal-Marts in Newport, R.I., and Rio Grande City, Texas; bank branches at Wal-Marts in Salem, Va., and Fairlawn, Va.; a Macey’s grocery store in Orem, Utah; a Dillons grocery store in Hutchinson, Kan.; a bank branch in Milford, Conn.; a Vons in Vista, Calif.; a bank in Savannah, Mo.; a bank in Ithaca, N.Y.; and banks in Tampa and Wesley Chapel, Fla.

The FBI also issued guidelines on www.fbi.gov to business owners and suggests that employees get detailed information, asking for specifics about the bomb, what it looks like and when it will explode.

The FBI doesn’t offer advice on whether to comply with the caller’s demands for money.

“We can’t advise companies whether to wire it or not, but we hope they’ll be real careful before they hit the send key,” Kolko said.

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