Post-Disaster Generosity Again Attracts Cons

The two men spoke passionately about helping victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, a pitch that snagged the sympathy of an elderly Los Feliz resident. But, Los Angeles police said, it turned out the two were con artists who bilked the 70-year-old out of $10,000.

That tsunami-related twist last week on an old bait-and-switch routine was one of many surfacing in Los Angeles and around the nation as con artists and identity thieves tried to cash in on the vast number of donations to charities and relief agencies in the disaster’s wake, authorities warned.

The FBI arrested a Pittsburgh man last week for trying to trick 800,000 e-mail recipients into donating to a phony tsunami relief website, and the agency was poised to move forward on several more cases around the country, said Daniel Larkin, national chief of the FBI’s Internet crime unit. The FBI is receiving about 50 referrals about possibly fraudulent websites each day, Larkin said, and has already shut down more than two dozen.

Three weeks after the tsunami devastated parts of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries, charities have raised more than $400 million in the United States alone. Many legitimate charities are working hard to help victims of the disaster, officials said, but predators are circling:

* Armed with information gleaned from Internet chat rooms, a con artist masquerading as a private investigator contacted survivors internationally, promising -- for a price -- to find missing loved ones and family treasures.

* Identity thieves set up fake websites, replete with pictures of tsunami victims and news accounts of relief efforts, meant to trick would-be donors into providing their credit card information.

* E-mail scammers are sending out pleas for help from phony survivors, invading recipients’ computers and stealing financial and other information from those who click on links in the documents.

It’s too soon to know how much money might have been stolen in those cases and others. But with memories still fresh of the estimated $4 million in scams wrought against charities and government agencies after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI and other law enforcement organizations say they are determined to stanch the flow of tsunami relief money to con artists in these early days -- before the problem gets out of hand.

“We would rather just get out in front of this,” FBI spokesman Paul Bressan said. “We know it’s going to grow in the next couple of weeks.”

In the Los Angeles incident last week, two men dressed in gray suits approached the elderly man as he was pulling out of his garage on Franklin Avenue, according to the police report. One of the con men reached into his pocket and pulled out two wads of money. They said they had $150,000 to donate to tsunami victims, and asked the victim if he wanted to donate money also.

The two men tricked the victim, whom police did not identify, into going to his bank and withdrawing $9,800. They then pretended to wrap both his and their money in a handkerchief and put it into the trunk of the victim’s car for safekeeping. But when he got home that night, the defrauded man found that the package contained only pieces of newspaper wrapped with rubber bands.

No arrests have been made in the case, according to LAPD Det. Bob Haro, who handles cases citywide of theft by trick or device, the new name for what used to be called bunco crimes.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the tsunami thing is starting to flare up,” Haro said. “People try to capitalize on somebody’s misfortunes.”

On Thursday, the FBI arrested Matthew Schmieder, a 24-year-old Pittsburgh man who had allegedly set up a phony version of a website for the Mercy Corps charity in Portland, Ore.

After agents got wind of the fraud, the FBI worked with two Internet companies to place the words “This is a scam” on the photographs of tsunami victims posted on the site. Schmieder was charged with fraud in U.S. District Court and faces a possible sentence of 20 years.

The FBI believes its efforts alerted potential donors and limited the amount Schmieder allegedly stole to $150.

The Internet site Fraudaid.com, which tracks fraud schemes, has compiled a list of five phony e-mail solicitations that have been sent to users worldwide.

In one, a sender who calls himself Muslimman Muslimman says he lost his home in Aceh province in Indonesia and asks for donations. Investigators traced the e-mail to an Internet service provider in the U.S.

Another solicitation illegally sported the logo of the American Red Cross and read: “You can help -- every penny counts. Click here to donate on line.” That letter, Fraudaid.com said, originated in Romania and traveled through Germany to get to the United States.

Arif Alikhan, chief of the computer crimes section for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, said fraud was almost inevitable when so much money was being donated.

“We’ve seen this after other disasters, [including] 9/11, the hurricanes in Florida,” Alikhan said. “Whenever there are so many people who are being so generous, there are going to be predators out there who are trying to exploit their generosity.”

To avoid being scammed, people should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to be a survivor or a representative of a foreign government asking for money, the FBI says. Those who wish to donate to tsunami victims online should go directly to the website of a legitimate charity and not follow a link from an e-mail or another site to a charity’s website.

It is also important to vet amateur fundraising organizations that hold benefits or accept donations.

The Red Cross says it sends an authorization letter to any organization that holds fundraisers in the relief agency’s name, and cautions donors to examine the letter before offering money.

Norwood Clark, whose family owns Uncle Darrow’s Cajun/Creole Eatery in Marina Del Rey, plans to have a representative of UNICEF on the premises when he raises money for tsunami victims at a Mardi Gras party at the restaurant next month.

“I don’t want to handle the money,” Clark said. “I don’t want to touch it.”

Times staff writer Veronica Torrejon contributed to this report.