HOUSTON -- Not everyone has good intentions when it comes to organizing relief efforts for victims in Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the FBI warned.
The FBI said natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes and floods also bring a flood of Internet scams, false Web sites and groups posing as charities.
"The criminals come out like cockroaches, essentially,” said FBI Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the bureau’s Houston Cyber Crime squad.
In 2006, Steven and Bartholomew Stevens were convicted of setting up a fake Salvation Army Web site after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The brothers were sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms after funneling as much as $48,000 in donations into their own bank accounts.
Agents have not yet seen the same response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, but they expect it is only a matter of time, Hawkins said.
"It's a very serious crime,” he said. “And we want to persuade people not to fall victim to it."
Both the FBI and the Texas Attorney General issued these consumer warnings on Thursday:
Don't respond to e-mails from an unknown source soliciting Haiti donations.
Don't open e-mail attachments related to Haiti. They might actually be an attempt to get your personal information.
Report suspicious e-mail and sites to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. The Web site is: www.ic3.gov.
And only give donations to organizations you know and organizations you know you can trust.
But Hawkins also asked that people not be scared away from donating simply by the fear of potential fraud.
