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Breaking News

Miami Bomb Scare Deemed a Dud

Aired August 08, 2002 - 15:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks Arthel. We want to update you again on the situation in Miami, at the port of Miami. We are there. Miami-Dade police, along with bomb sniffing teams, have been there looking at a suspicious article that was apparently in a ship which originated from the Middle East, more specifically in Israel.
And our Mark Potter is on the telephone there with us to update us on the events at the port of Miami.

Hi there - Mark?

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, MIAMI: Hi, there. Well, wait until you hear about this one. This is unusual. The scene has been cleared.

WHITFIELD: OK.

POTTER: That's the main thing I want to tell you. Everything is fine. There is nothing wrong here, but they did have a little bit of a scare. We talked to Tom Wonkowski (ph) and Ruby Hogan (ph), top officials at the U.S. Customs Service here in Miami, and they say that, in a shipment of personal effects, a boarder ship coming from Israel through Miami then to Ft. Lauderdale and heading to the Bahamas, they found a dummy test missile that had been exploded. They also found a 155 millimeter artillery shell that had been cleaned out - and here's the good part - they were both being used by the owner as flower pots.

WHITFIELD: You're kidding!

POTTER: And that's how he planned to, I guess, keep his flowers in the Bahamas when they finally arrived there. Of course, you can imagine the inspectors alerting to that. They did call in the bomb squad, in an abundance of caution. The squad came. They checked everything out. They talked to the shipper. And everything is fine.

It's all legal. No one is being arrested and the ship and the shipment are going to be allowed to go on their way. So all this will be heading to the Bahamas, and hopefully the man there will have a place to put his flowers. There was a bit of a scare here at the port of Miami, but all is well now.

WHITFIELD: Well, some creative gardening ideas. I have heard it all now, Mark. Well, we appreciate you joining us on the telephone to conclude this very strange mystery, even more strange now that we'll try to figure out how to use dummy test missiles to make for a good flower pot. All right. Thanks very much.

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