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While many enjoyed the daily festivities of the 2023 Beer Cheese Festival this weekend, others were alerted to a potential scare at the Kroger in Winchester.

An early-morning bomb threat proved false, and all were evacuated from the store, located off Bypass Road, before an investigation conducted by the Winchester Police Department (WPD) concluded that an extortion attempt was the likely culprit.

The WPD was alerted at approximately 10:30 a.m. to the store after an anonymous individual called the store demanding money, threatening that they had an explosive device set to go off.

“They had received a call [to] the service desk saying there was an explosive device, and it would be detonated if they did not wire a certain amount of money to these people that were calling in,” said Winchester Police Chief James Hall. “Officers looked for any type of suspicious packages [and] couldn’t find any.”

While the WPD  began its investigation, they were joined by a K-9 unit from Lexington that failed to detect any credible bomb threat.

Beginning with Saturday’s investigation, officials believed it could be part of an elaborate hoax because several other stores in the Northern Kentucky area encountered similar scenarios.

As of Monday afternoon, this appears to be the prevailing theory.

“That’s the premise that we’re going under,” Hall said. “Our store did not [wire any money]. All indications lead to it’s a hoax [with] somebody trying to extort money.”