Disaster scams on the rise
In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, fraudsters have increasingly rushed in to take advantage of the outpouring of charitable donations; speaking on a panel at an international symposium on organized fraud in Australia, the Department of Justice’s deputy chief for strategy and policy in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division, said scammers had websites for fake charities in place before predicted disasters had even hit
In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, fraudsters have increasingly rushedin to take advantage of the outpouring of charitable donations.
Speaking on a panel at an international symposium on organized fraud in Australia, Jonathan Rusch, the Department of Justice’s deputy chief for strategy and policy in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division, said scammers had websites for fake charities in place before predicted disasters had even hit.
“Even before the actual natural forces hit land and started to create so much devastation and harm or death, people were already registering domain names like “tsunamihelp” and “tsunamidonate” and so on, so that they could be positioned as soon as possible after the real disaster,” Rusch said.
“And we’ve seen similar things in more recent years with the Haiti earthquakes, the Chile earthquakes, and we’ve gotten indications of the same kind of thing after the Queensland floods and the Christchurch earthquake as well,” he continued.
As an example, Rusch pointed to one man who made $40,000 in the two days following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 by setting up a bogus charity website called airkatrina.com.
On the website, “he had all kinds of heart-rending statements to make about how ‘this will stay with me for the rest of my life’ and he had nothing to do with any relief efforts or any legitimate assistance,” Rusch said. “His only goal was to get money from people who wanted to be genuinely helpful to others.”
The individual was eventually caught and was sentenced to at least two years in prison.
Rusch explained that these scammers take advantage of the people’s goodwill and the anonymity that the Internet provides.
“They don’t care whether or not the money should be going to legitimate victims … they’re actually playing on legitimate donors’ willingness to try to get money to real victims as quickly as possible.”
He went on to urge law enforcement officials to work to stop this growing trend.
“It’s more important to work together effectively, and be aggressive in pursuing this kind of fraud so you send a strong message, regionally and even nationally, with this kind of fraud [that] it will not be tolerated.”
