all right good afternoon I'm penel County Sheriff Bob gualter and we're here today to announce several arrests uh and but before I do I just want to make some remarks about what's been going on out here on the pelis beaches we all know that pelis county has suffered devastating damage from back-to-back hurricanes Helen and Milton and the number one priority of the pelis County Sheriff's Office from the time that these storms formed in the Gulf has been the safety and the security of our residents businesses and guests before hurricane passed by the penel coast causing unprecedented storm surge that destroyed many homes and businesses throughout the county especially here on the pelis beaches we asked people to evacuate and some did and some did not sadly because of not evacuating 12 people died in pelis County from Hurricane Helen within days of hurricane Helen Passing By Us Milton was predicted to directly hit the pelis county Coast as a category 5 hurricane and we again people to evacuate and most people did leaving many residential areas including the pelis beaches a complete Ghost Town the mandatory evacuation order affected over 500,000 residents of pelis County with some people still without power post hen and people washed out of their homes and businesses we assured our residents and business owners that the pelis county sheriff's office would saturate their neighborhoods and businesses with deputies to prevent loading and deter those who wanted to wreak further Havoc from doing so we wanted people to feel safe so that they could evacuate and not worry about their properties during that time we had about 80 extra deputies per night and about 30 extra deputies each day patrolling these Beach communities and other places to apprehend those who were here to steal and cause further damage between October 2nd and October 23rd just in the last 21 days we've arrested 45 people in the penel beach communities on 68 different charges including armed robbery burglary waering and prowling Grand Theft vandalism and trespass of the 45 burglars and thieves that we've arrested only two were from penis County the rest came here from out of the area to steal from our residents and businesses now of these 45 burglars and thieves who came here to steal 41 out of the 45 are not US citizens and they're here illegally from Mexico Cuba Colombia Honduras Venezuela and other countries in addition to the 45 that we have arrested deputies have had contact with and it think about this number we've had contact with 196 other individuals who were in these Beach neighborhoods where they did not belong at times they should not be there doing things they should not be doing but we did not have probable cause to arrest these people so we made contact with them and told them to get out a lot of these people were in in the area to take others property and our depuy's efforts prevented additional crimes from occurring now of these 196 people that we had contact with and we got them out of here 141 were not from pelis County and 163 of the 196 people were not US citizens again most were from these countries in Central and South America so as the pelis beaches recover we're going to continue these patrols and arrest everyone we can who is stealing from the vulnerable victims of two back-to-back storms that have devastated our community our effort at protecting the community has not stopped with these hurricanes direct impact and we're now focused on protecting our residents and our businesses who are desperate to rebuild and get on with their lives from being exploited and ripped off by people offering to do work on their property but in some cases have no intention of doing the work in other cases are unqualified to do the work and in all of these are unlicensed to do the work we see this too often in storm devastated communities where people come in after a hurricane and solicit work get down payments to secure a place in the line because these contractors are so backed up and then they never do the work never complete the work or they do shoty work that does not meet code and then has to be redone at additional cost these people are simply scammers and thieves and no different than the people in the neighborhoods at 3 3 a.m. breaking into a house that we've been arresting after these unlicensed people rip off consumers we then get inundated with theft and schemed Def fraud cases where we have to investigate these supposed contractors who have double victim victimized vulnerable people and who are simply trying to get on with their lives so to try and curb some of the illegal activity by those who want to Simply rip off others for the past 3 days the penel County Sheriff's Office along with penel County Consumer Protection penel County Construction licensing board the fora Department of Business and Professional Regulation the fora Department of Financial Services the city of madira Beach and the state attorney's office for the sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida have been conducting an undercover unlicensed contractor operation here in Mader Beach we've had teams of undercover detectives at various locations visited by people who held themselves out to be licensed contractors able and qualified to do plumbing electrical air conditioning Roofing and structur work since Tuesday we have arrested 58 people on about 80 different charges for engaging in unlicensed Contracting in violation of Florida law because the community is under a state of emergency declared by the governor each of these charges are felonies under Forida statute 48912 7 now there's good reason why Forida Law requires that people who do significant and complex work like electrical work and plumbing be licensed it shows that they have the proper education they have the the proper training and have demonstrated skills necessary to do this important work licensing also ensures accountability and gives citizens the confidence that the work will be done properly and that they will not be ripped off during this undercover investigation unlicensed people offered to do over 75 different construction projects totaling over one quar of a million dollar over $250,000 worth of work many of these people like the other thieves and scammers we have encountered and arrested are not from penis County 21 of the 58 are not penis residents more importantly many of them have criminal histories for everything from engaging in unlicensed Contracting to theft fraud burglary robbery and other crimes showing that they're really thieves looking to pray on vulnerable people who are hurting and who don't need to be victimized again a few examples and the people are here on these boards first one is Steven valter who came to our County from t to do construction work he is unlicensed and has previously been arrested for unoff acts while in the capacity of a contractor falsely identifying as a licensed contractor failing to register as a sexual predator deriving proceeds from prostitution and many drug crimes another one of the people on these boards is Shay ganison he's from Clearwater he offered to do unlicensed plumbing and electoral work for $4,000 he has previously been arrested for burglary of a home dealing in stolen property and resisting arrest and then another one over here is Todd GST he's also from Clearwater who offered to do unlicensed electrical work for $3,000 and his criminal arrest record involves crimes of theft fraud probation violations forgery illegal use of credit cards selling counterfeit Goods organized scheme to defraud burglary dealing in stolen property false verification and ownership of property and aggravated stalking would anyone want to get of this guy who is a demonstrated scammer and Thief who has not shown he has the proper skills to do the work of an electrician $4,000 to do electrical work in their home now you see over here on my far right on your left a business card and this is one of the guys that showed up today and the business card that we have is for Antonio Plumbing LLC get those set back up there we go and so the the business card as you can see is for Antonio ping LLC now as you can see down in the bottom right the names of St Petersburg and Plant City are misspelled but more importantly it represents to the consumer that the company is an active for a company registered with the state as an LLC or a limited liability company that's a misrepresentation it's a lie and fraud on the consumer there is no such Act of LLC registered with the state of Florida that company was dissolved earlier this year the person who provided that business card with all the misspellings and representing to be an LLC is Jose Cruz Lopez Lopez currently has a pending gun charge out of Puerto Rico he's on probation for drug distribution and for operating a continuing criminal Enterprise so Lopez is not licensed and his supposed company is a sham and the only thing that's accurate about him is is a convicted felon who's on probation now adherence to the licensing process in Florida is important and it matters because it involves a criminal history check and whether someone has a criminal history is a factor and whether that person is issued a construction license so by engaging in unlicensed Contracting these felons avoid the whole vetting process that licensing provides and the assurances that it brings to Consumers as to who they are bringing into their homes to do this very important work now the panel's county sheriff's office will continue to do all we can to protect our residents guests and businesses from people looking to steal from them and rip them off during the most vulnerable of times people need to be able to rebuild restore their lives and we're going to do all we can to help them do that without being double victimized as hurricane victims and victimized by scammers and thieves so my message is don't come to penel County and steal in these storm ravaged communities don't pray on people who are trying to recover because if you do you're going to go to jail on multiple felony charges now the numbers I gave you um are as of this morning we've got some updated numbers and a couple of the people here now uh that were uh arrested this afternoon that make up some of these updated numbers and right now it's 63 arrests on 93 different charges is the total so far as of the last hour and these two guys make up those most recent numbers all right thanks everybody appreciate it