Full Notification

The Lake County Sheriff's Office has joined the FBI's the Wildfire Disaster Fraud Task Force.

As a result of the recent wildfire disaster in Northern California, the FBI has established an ad hoc Wildfire Disaster Fraud Task Force to address fraud related to the relief and recovery efforts following the wildfires. The Lake County Sheriff's Office is a member of this task force which includes federal, state, and local agencies with responsibility for investigating and prosecuting disaster-related fraud in the four counties primarily impacted by the wildfires (Lake County, Mendocino County, Napa County, and Sonoma County). The following agencies are currently represented on the task force:

California Highway Patrol

Clearlake Police Department

Contractors State License Board

DHS - OIG

FBI

FEMA

Lake County Sheriff's Office

Napa County Sheriff's Office

Napa County District Attorney's Office

Santa Rosa Police Department

Small Business Administration

Sonoma County District Attorney's Office Sonoma County Sheriff's Office U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development United States Attorney's Office

This task force is a cooperative effort between local, state, and federal agencies to share and disseminate information and collaborate on investigations in an effort to streamline the process for preventing and addressing disaster-related fraud. A primary goal of this task force will be to utilize intelligence obtained from previous disasters, such as the hurricanes in Houston, Florida, and Puerto Rico, to identify trends in fraudulent activity in an effort to prevent and deter disaster-related fraud in the counties impacted by the wildfires. This task force will also provide a platform for referring complaints and reports of disaster-related fraud to the appropriate local, state, or federal agencies, and collaborating on investigative and prosecutive efforts. Additionally, the task force will ensure that information and intelligence related to disaster fraud is disseminated to Northern California communities impacted by the wildfire disaster, in an effort to inform and advise the public of schemes to defraud and instruct the public on how to avoid falling victim to those schemes.