The FBI on Wednesday pushed back against a report claiming investigators had dismissed all ransom notes connected to Nancy Guthrie, while conceding that many of the messages have led nowhere.
“The FBI and its task force partners have received several ransom notes over the course of this investigation. Some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy,” the FBI’s Phoenix field office said.
“Other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such.”
Reuters reported Tuesday that emails seeking money in exchange for the body of the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie had been found to be bogus.
But that report was based on an unfinished internal document, and law enforcement sources confirmed to The Post on Wednesday that investigators are still examining whether some of the messages may be credible.
In the days after Nancy disappeared on Jan. 31, multiple ransom notes were sent to television stations, TMZ and members of the Guthrie family. While most were quickly dismissed, investigators considered two or three potentially legitimate because they included specific claims about what the grandmother was wearing and details about her home.
The first demand sought $4 million to be deposited into a Bitcoin wallet in exchange for her safe return. A later message claimed Guthrie had died, but said the family could still pay to recover her remains.
A third, more recent email claimed to have information identifying the alleged kidnappers.
But while the agency has questioned the veracity of the letters for months, it hasn’t reached a final conclusion on whether or not they’re bogus, The Post’s source said.
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FBI director Kash Patel declined to comment when asked about the matter during a Wednesday press conference.
“I’m not going to comment on that. We are continuing to assist that investigation. We’ve always been in an assist role. It’s a state matter being led by the state authorities,” Patel told reporters.
The ransom letters — among more than a dozen sent to law enforcement and media after the kidnapping — received special attention because they correctly identified details that hadn’t been revealed to the public, including a broken security light on Guthrie’s house and the Apple Watch she had been wearing.
Investigators sent a small transaction to the sender’s Bitcoin wallet to determine its credibility.
But the wallet showed no further activity and the letter-writers didn’t acknowledge receipt, casting doubt on whether the would-be kidnappers actually had Guthrie and were willing to make a trade.
Furthermore, a suspect caught trying and failing to disable Guthrie’s doorbell camera on the morning of her disappearance seemed to be a bumbling amateur, not the sort of person who would engineer a sophisticated crypto ransom scheme — at least, not without help.
And anyone smart enough to pull off a Bitcoin ransom would be smart enough not to attempt a celebrity kidnapping in the first place, attorney Todd Spodek, who specializes in cyber crime.
“An actual, sophisticated operation wouldn’t have gotten involved in a kidnapping conspiracy-turned-homicide. That alone says it’s rookie s–t,” Spodek, who represents alleged $16 million fraudster Ronald Spektor, told The Post.
Meanwhile, the task force is still trying to track the ransom notes’ authors by following the chain of proxy servers that the sender, or senders, used to protect their identities.
Authorities also detained and released several persons of interest, canvassed Tucson-area gun stores, and analyzed potential DNA evidence — all to no avail as the investigation enters its fifth month.
