Federal officials executed a search warrant at three Caterpillar, Inc. facilities in the Tri-County Area — including the corporate headquarters — Thursday morning.
Company officials confirmed the presence in a statement without specifying which agency was performing the search or what the search was in regard to. A spokeswoman declined by email to provide further details.
“Caterpillar is cooperating,” the brief statement said.
At least some of the agents entering the headquarters building wore jackets bearing an Internal Revenue Service logo, others appeared to be from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Others simply denoted that they were federal agents. A placard in the window of one of the federal vehicles noted it was used by police from the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security Office of Export Enforcement.
IRS, FDIC and the Security Office of Export Enforcement? This doesn’t look good.
* Video…
Fed agents outside of Caterpillar World HQ. IRS agents and others wearing bulletproof vests. @pjstarhttps://t.co/tnAEKG9y9T
Gov. Bruce Rauner surveyed the damage from Wednesday’s tornadoes in North Central Illinois.
At least one person was killed and 14 were injured in Tuesday evening’s severe storms.
76-year-old Wayne Tuntland was killed in Ottawa by a falling tree, local police confirm, and Saint Elizabeth Medical Center reports they received 14 patients as a result of the storm with injuries to the head, knee and arm areas.
Rauner talked with victims and emergency responders while looking over homes and businesses in Ottawa and Naplate.
Rauner promised to offer state assistance and urged insurance companies to move quickly to help victims.
Early Tuesday evening Gov. Rauner activated the State Emergency Operations Center in Springfield to ensure state personnel and equipment would be ready to be quickly deployed if needed.
“Fortunately there was a good warning system and people knew that the storms were developing and they were coming,” Rauner said.
Two people were killed in Illinois and more than a dozen others were injured. Another person also died in Missouri while the violent storm system tore across many areas of the upper Midwest. […]
“It could have been a lot worse,” Gov. Rauner said Wednesday. “We have to count our blessings.”
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner planned to survey storm damage Thursday in White County, which was among the areas hit hard by Midwest storms that spawned tornadoes.
Rauner’s visit to Southern Illinois on Thursday follows a tour on Wednesday of storm damage in central Illinois including Ottawa, where an uprooted tree killed 76-year-old Wayne Tuntland. […]
Rauner was scheduled to attend a briefing with officials at 11 a.m. in Carmi, which is in southeast Illinois, then survey damage in Elkville, which is on U.S. 51 south of Du Quoin.
* The video got a bunch of positive comments like this one…
Thank you Governor Rauner for touring the towns that were affected by the severe storms. You’re the most compassionate governor and you actually care for downstate.
The man truly knows how to use social media. That video was very well done. But maybe it’s just a little too well done, too tightly edited and too melodramatic with that somber music. He did good work yesterday. He’s doing good work today. Do we really need something like this?
