KUALA LUMPUR: Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain confirmed that 25 more schools, including public schools in the country received emails warning them of bomb threats.
He said police have attended to all the reports and but none were found to be true.
"We have found from the initial 19 reports received, until 8am today police have received a total of 44 bomb threats involving government, private and international schools.
"We have attended to all the threats and carried out security flushing to determine no bombs had been planted and so far we believe it's a hoax" he said.
Razarudin said the emails all came from the same email address taktstorer@beeble.com, which is registered in Cyprus.
"The IP address is from Finland but this IP address can keep changing. We are working with our counterparts including the FBI to identify the origins of the threat," he said.
So far, Kedah (one private school), Selangor (17 including six private schools and 11 international schools ) , KL (seven international schools) Johor (six including two public schools and four international schools ), Negri Sembilan (three including two private schools and one international), Sarawak (one public school and two international schools) and Sabah (two international schools) received the same email.
"We have also contacted the state education department to ask them to check their emails and state police chiefs have been instructed to alert the education department upon receiving any new reports," he said.
Razarudin added similar cases have been reported in schools in United States and Germany this week.
Earlier it was reported that an email sent out by two email addresses newly created under 'Taktstorer' and 'Takstorer' via Beeble.com email service provider had sent out the emails.
Razarudin said the email address 'Taktstorer' which means troublemaker/ peace disruptor in German has never been used to send out any emails prior to this. The original text in the bomb scare email was written in English and later translated to Bahasa Malaysia using a translating application.
He had said that the content of the email was exactly the same as the one sent to 70 schools in Jamaica on November 12 this year. In that case, the suspect was identified as a person who suffered abuse when he was a child and was deprived of attention in his schooling days. Despite that, the suspect had IT software knowledge and capability to hide his identity.
"We are also trying to establish if the recent threat has anything to do with the same suspect in Jamaica," he had been reported saying.
Razarudin said the case is being investigated under Section 507 of the Penal Code for deliberately causing criminal intimidation and under Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998.
He gave his assurance that schools, students and teachers are not at risk of a potential bombing and the situtation is safe.
"Police do not take such threats lightly and investigations are ongoing to identify any individuals believed to be responsible for sending out the bomb scare threats," he had said.