As you know had some blips on the radar this morning. I believe that we must now operate under the assumption that the fugitives have not split up, as we originally assumed. It’s now pretty obvious that they are covering their tracks…not only that, but they are toying with us. This most recent volley began with the 5th ‘hit’ that we’ve seen in 48 hours, and each has been separated by hundreds of miles and dozens of borders. To recap:
- At 03:00 this morning we caught a hit out of Bangkok on William Mayne’s SIN. A sum of ¥50,000 was transferred from certified credstick to his personal financial accounts via a matrix link traced back to a matrix cafe in Bang Na. It was then immediately transferred to an unlisted account originating from the Philippines. We immediately deployed matrix and physical assets to ascertain the owner of the account. At the time, discovery was expected within 6 hours.
- At 03:30 a second hit was received from Anchorage, Alaska. The SIN belonging to Benjamin Knottingham was flagged at customs entering Athabaskan Council, and purchasing a bus ticket to Vancouver, SSC. This was corroborated by security footage of a troll roughly Knottingham’s size and build boarding the bus. Again, the ticket was paid for via a withdrawl and transfer from certified credstick. Again, an unspecified balance was transferred to an account in the Philippines.
- At 04:20 today a third hit originated from Hyderabad. We assumed, at the time, that the group’s hacker (S. Renfield, A.K.A: Aron) was getting sloppy. A set of passcodes attached to an ID that was logged at the Griffin Biotechnology facility was used to book flights for 3 from New Delhi to Milan. The tickets were also paid for with money released via certified credstick, and an unspecified balance was transferred by the booking agent to the unlisted account in the Philippines. Since GeMiTo is a likely spot to ‘lay low’, we immediately followed up on the lead, placing an agent on the flight, and readying a team to intercept them upon landing.
- At 07:00 (minutes before the flight was set to land in Milan), Aron’s account was pinged accessing a well known datastore in Hong Kong. The message was intercepted, and the line was traced to Kalutara, Sri Lanka. The message itself was a general call for aid from his local contacts who, as he put it, ‘Left him hanging out in the fucking wind’, and left some weakly encrypted contact instructions. A team was dispatched immediately to the scene.
- Finally, nearly simultaneously, at 07:02, 07:03, and 07:05 hits were detected in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland to IDs attached to Bei Liu Jones, Bezukhov, and Bu Hao. Not only that, but the Bu Hao ID also popped up in New York City, London, and Santa Fe minutes later.
Needles to say, the team in Milan discovered nothing. The tickets that were purchased with Aron’s credentials were issued to 3 Chinese youths with ties to the 10,000 Lion’s Triad. Local authorities would not let our forces detain them within the terminal, and they boarded a flight back to Macau a few minutes later.
Followup on the bus to Vancouver turned up nothing but an empty seat. The sketchy security footage from the bus terminal was found to be a fake.
The hotel room in Sri Lanka that was broadcasting the ‘Aron’ ID was found to be empty, as well, containing nothing but a sealed package that appeared to have been delivered by courier that morning. Opening the package revealed a pay-as-you-go, ‘Hello Kitty: My first ComLink’. Needless to say, there was no return address on the package.
Our hackers finally broke through on the offshore accounts a few minutes ago. The accounts themselves are no longer active, but they were arranged by Rizal Fei. The accounts were paid for and accessed by an unknown third party. Records indicate that a sum of almost ¥250,000 was moved through the accounts this morning.
To make a long story short, it seems that the fugitives now possess enough capital to disappear for a substantial amount of time. I recommend setting up a standard 3 month surveillance sweep of Eastern Asia and standing down all physical response at this time. If the fugitives should re-surface over the next 3 months we can respond, as needed.