Hurricane Relief Fund Scams

People who illegally obtained money through relief funding or bogus charities from Hurricane Katrina are still being taken to court.

The Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force was formed in September 8, 2005 after discovering that people and organizations were illegally obtaining funds from Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita.

According to the US Department of Justice, “The Task Force will combat all types of fraud relating to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, with an initial emphasis on charity fraud, identity theft, insurance fraud, and procurement and government-benefit fraud.”

In a progress report dated August 30, 2007, over 768 people have been charged with fraud. Here are examples of what these people tried to pull off:

• A man submitted multiple claims for bogus addresses using birthdates, social security numbers and other personal data obtained through his workplace.
• Another man claimed he lived in Louisiana and Texas when Katrina and Rita hit. He is a resident of Florida.
• FEMA was paying law enforcement officials extra money for working overtime and two police officers submitted false reports of hours worked.
• A lady made 40 claims using different names and residential addresses. She was caught because she used the same mailing address for the checks.
• Several home repair companies and contractors winning bids for federal projects collected money for jobs they did not complete.
• A fraud ring was uncovered whereby recruiters would get a kickback on FEMA checks cashed by their recruits. Employees of a check cashing company were part of the plan in order to cash the checks with no hassle.
• A debris removal company submitted slips for reimbursement but the trucks were not in operation at the time and nothing was delivered to the dump site.
• A man in prison received money for a claim he made on an unknown address.

Want to report someone?

The Department of Justice is still accepting submissions of suspected fraudulent activity.