German Internet millionaire Mr Kim Schmitz said he received thousands of tips from around the world in response to his offer of a $10 million reward for information on the terror attacks in the US.
Mr Schmitz, a 27-year-old ex-hacker turned capital investor and a relentless self-promoter, said: "Of course, we cannot say what's true or not...but we will forward all of it to the FBI". Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Ms Cindy McCraw in Washington, D.C., said she could not comment on how useful the tips might be without having seen them, and said she was not familiar with Mr Schmitz.
Mr Schmitz launched a campaign on Wednesday to get information about Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, suspected by US authorities as having coordinated the attacks in Washington and New York that killed thousands.
Mr Schmitz said in the last 24 hours he had received 10,000 e-mails, nearly 1,545,000 visitors to his Web page (www.kimble.org) and that 4,500 other Web pages had been linked to the section of his page describing the reward.
US investigators have set up Web pages (www.ifccfbi.gov) and hotlines to help in the massive investigation. Mr Schmitz was convicted of computer hacking in 1998 and has since made a fortune in computer security consulting. He is reported to be worth about 200 million.