all right good afternoon everybody I'm penel County Sheriff Bob gualter and here with me is Clearwater Police Chief Eric Andy and we're here at the Clearwater Police Department today to announce uh more arrests as a result of people trying to scam and double victimize residents devastated by both of the recent hurricanes holen and Milton as we know many communities in penel County have suffered devastating damage from these back-to-back hurricanes and for all of law enforcement throughout penis County our number one priority from the time these storms formed in the Gulf of Mexico has been the safety and the security of our residents our businesses and our guests and our effort at protecting the community has not stopped after the Hurricane's direct impact as we announced two weeks ago in mad beach that our current focus is on protecting our residents and businesses who are desperate to rebuild and get onward their lives for being exploited and ripped off by people offering to do work on their property but in some cases have absolutely no intention of doing the work in other cases are unqualified to do the work and in all the cases are unlicensed to do the work now we see this way too often in storm devastated communities where people most from out of town come in after a hurricane they solicit work they get down payments to secure a place in line and never do the work they never complete the work or they do shoty work that doesn't meet code and has to be redone these people are simply scam scammers and thieves and really no different than people that are running around in neighborhoods at 3:00 in the morning breaking into homes now after these unlicensed people rip off consumers we unfortunately and way too often get inundated with theft and schemed to Def frud cases where we have to investigate these supposed contractors who have double victimized these vulnerable people who are simply trying to get on with their lives now indeed uh and you'll hear a little bit about it from Chief Gandy but the penel county Sheriff's Office and the Clearwater Police Department have received complaints of people being scammed by these unlicensed and unscrupulous contractors during the last few weeks so to try and curb some of that illegal activity by those who simply want to rip off others for the past two days the penel County Sheriff's Office and the Clearwater Police Department 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 and the state of attorney's office for the six judicial circuit of Florida have been conducting an undercover unlicensed contractor operation here in Clearwater and more specifically focused on Clearwater Beach we've had teams of undercover detectives from both the Clearwater Police Department and the sheriff's office at various locations who were visited by people who held themselves out to be licensed contractors able and qualified to do plumbing electrical air conditioning Roofing and other structural work since yesterday uh We've arrested Ed many people and as you can see here on the boards behind me and to the side of me they say that we've arrested 32 people on about 44 different charges well if you will the hot off the press number because they're continuing to get updated because the operation's ongoing right now we're at 38 people uh and by the time we're done we'll be well over 40 but again the with the numbers here on these board shows we arrested 32 people on about 44 different charges and were engaging in unlicensed Contracting in violation of Florida law and because the community is still under a state of emergency issued by the governor all of these are felonies under fora statute 48912 7 now when we talk about licensing and the reason for licensing there's a very very good reason why fora law requires that people who do significant and complex work like electrical work and plumbing that they be licensed it shows they have the proper education the proper training and they've demonstrated the skills necessary to do that work licensing also ensures accountability and gives citizens confidence that the work will be done properly and that they won't get ripped off during this undercover investigation unlicensed people offered to do over 15 different types of construction projects totaling well over $100,000 worth of work and as I mentioned a couple minutes ago the people who generally are coming into our communities and that are doing this and committing this crime are people from outside the area and is it Beed itself out a couple weeks ago in Mad Beach it Bears itself out here again during this operation because 25 of the people who we arrested over the last two days like many of the others as I said in madira Beach are from outside of pelis County so the majority of them they're not even from here they're coming in from outside the area to exploit our residents and our businesses now also and I mentioned this a little bit in Madera Beach but we're seeing the same thing here at least six of these people are here in the United States illegally with one and you'll see his name up here on the board Nicholas Ortiz he's here doing this engaged in these crimes and this unlicensed activity ripping people off and he's currently under as they call it removal proceedings which is deportation proceedings so more importantly though I'd say many of these people they have extensive criminal histories for crimes like robbery theft burglary drug trafficking and really other crime showing that they're just thieves looking to pray on these vulnerable people who are hurting and don't need to be double victimized a few examples uh and people are on these boards and what you see here on these boards the people here on your right are people that were arrested yesterday and we don't have the mug shots for the people over here and again these numbers are increased from when these boards were printed just a couple of hours ago but one of the people from yesterday is Sergio Triana who came to our County from Tampa to do construction work he's unlicensed and has been previously arrested for grand theft aggravated battery arm robbery drug trafficking resisting arrest trespassing and obstruction by false information another one that was arrested yesterday is Alan Brooks he's from Pasco County who offered to do unlicensed Contracting and he's previously been arrested for dealing and stolen property Grand Theft assault and battery and fleeing and looting and then from St Petersburg there's Alexander early who offered to do unlicensed work and his criminal arrest record involves crimes of robbery theft open loudness fraud and Battery the licensing process matters because it involves a criminal history check and whether someone has a criminal history is a factor and whether they're issued a license so by engaging in this unlicensed Contracting these felons avoid the whole vetting process that licensing provides and the assurances it brings to Consumers as to who their bringing into their homes and businesses to do this important work so we in the law enforcement Community throughout pelis County are going to continue to do all we can to protect our residents our guests and our businesses from people looking to steal from them and rip them off during their most vulnerable 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 victims of scammers and thieves so the message is don't come to penel County in these storm ravaged communities and don't pray on people trying to recover and if you do you're going to go to jail so I'll turn it over to Chief Gandy for uh some comments and then we'll take any questions that you have thank you Sheriff so since these storms arrived we all saw a variety of handwritten signs go up in the medians Advertising Signs vehicles with uh signs on the side of them offering to provide service unfortunately some of those folks are here to provide services they're not licensed to provide they're taking advantage of people in their most desperate time who are just trying to get back in their homes so after the storms we posted an electronic Message Board out on Memorial Causeway for everybody to see anyone who drives out there sees a sign it says don't hire unlicensed contractors or hire licensed contractors this county has signs indicating hire unlicensed contractors all over the place any of the affected areas have this signage you can go out there for yourselves and see it so those were put there for several purposes to message our community to hire licensed contractor to protect themselves and to message these unlicensed folks that they can't be out here doing this so after the sheriff and the Sheriff's Office conducted the first operation at madira beach we had several conversations about partnering in an operation up here in Clearwater based on what our troops were seeing in the field we were seeing the trucks with out ofate tags with the equipment in them we knew that we were going to have a problem here ironically um while we were planning this operation we got a call last week and it involved a citizen who realized they had hired an unlicensed contractor to do $200,000 worth of work they contacted us we intervened made contact and in fact this individual was not licensed to do most of the work they were there and purported to be able to do so the problem you know the prevalence is there we noticed it we saw the indicators we had this big case and the the advantage for us is to be able to partner with the sheriff's office in this because they've been doing this for many years and have a lot of experience at it we wanted to leverage that responsibility and provide our own resources here in our community to help make this a bigger and better operation and based on what the sheriff said and what we have behind us I believe that uh has been quite successful so you know we haven't had this kind of storm damage here in Clearwater previously it in some instances was catastrophic these houses were completely destroyed uh infiltrated with water and um you know know we're just here to make sure that our citizens don't take another hit from an unlicensed contractor so thank you and we'll be glad to answer any questions you might have anybody got anything you want to ask are these people being aggressive towards homeowners I mean home owners are desperate to get their stuff fixed and stuff like that are they being more aggressive maybe a red flag yeah yeah some of them are you know some of them actually whenn the undercover detectives are at these houses some of them are walking up and just out of the blue offering to do Services some of them have and and I showed in the last PR press conference I showed some of the cards that they have and some of the I'll call them brochures and some of the markings I didn't put them up here today but it it's I mean yeah yeah they're being aggressive it's kind of shoddy uh they're out there and again they're driving up and down what we're seeing too and the chief mentioned it I think we're seeing it not only in Clear Water but up and down the gulf beaches a lot of these people are here when the out ofate tags they're actually fraudulent tags from Colorado and from Texas and from Louisiana and they're just waiting to see these people and then they just come up knock on the door hey I'm here to do work and again a lot of these people are desperate because they're so vulnerable because they just want their stuff fixed and you know unfortunately you know you know the adage if it's too good to be true it probably is there was one of these guys yesterday uh in this operation that came to do some work and they were negotiating and the original negotiation was the guy said oh I'll do this work for $35,000 and they said whoa oh okay I'll do it for 3,000 I mean you know so it's they're they have no intention of doing the work okay they're just going to rip them off what's been the reaction for for homeowners that do all have helped when they realize that they've been scammed or they realize they like you said they about to get hit again in the middle of attachment well most of them are just devastated you know and they and they feel bad of course you imagine you know people are going to feel embarrassed by this they know better but they're so desperate to get the stuff done and get the work done and get it done as quickly as possible because they want to get back in their homes so I'd say you know the general reaction is is that they're like oh you know we know better uh but we're so desperate to get this done they felt victim to it they really are and that's why say that people are so vulnerable and then they're double victimized and of course you know there's that level of embarrassment too so you know we got to feel for all these people for so many reasons and that's why we're going to keep doing this and we're not going to stop it I get that but we can keep doing it and send a message and take as many of these people off the street as we possibly can just to keep people from being in that situation sure in these cases here were there any examples where these unlicensed contractors took down payment and then left or did sh work yeah I think you know the chief was talking about you want to talk more about that one case I mean there are plenty of them sure yeah so in that particular case I believe the down payment was $25,000 so um the owner is out of state is my understanding uh they they paid this person 25,000 they began doing the work that they were not licensed to do and uh you know it it could have been a result and I'm not sure I haven't read the total case File but it could have been a result of the public publicity related to the the prior operation that made them think to ask the question and I think that's really important because they take advantage of people that are desperate uh you know getting workers and getting contractors it's it's difficult because everyone needs them right now and what happens is they they get somebody and they say hey we will do the work what what the uneducated homeowner doesn't realize is that could prohibit them from getting Insurance in the future prohibit them from selling the home when someone does a title search and finds that well there's there's all this work that's been done but there's no record of it there's no permits pulled so that's why it's so important and and money in in in these Ops obviously money's not changing hands but the the victims that we come across money does change hands so in that case the U unlicensed contractor took the 25,000 went dark no they didn't go dark they were they were working but working on things they weren't permitted to work on sure so people know I'm sorry if this was mentioned is there an easy way in pelis county or clear water to check what's the website for them to check with their cont yeah you can you can go to and we can get that information so y'all can put it out but you you can go to uh the penel County Construction licensing board also the fora Department of Business and Professional Regulations website and you go in and check and see if people are another way you can too is is that we find this where these people have these uh what are called llc's or limited liability companies or they'll say Inc for Incorporated on it and they're not um and you can go to the Florida uh Secretary of State's office and run all of those names and run the people and see if they're a legit Corporation that's also really important too not only being licensed but when they say they're Incorporated and they're not because when they're Incorporated it gives people a level of assurance that there's something there to back them up it's a legit company so all of those are places they can check to verify sure absolutely no it's good stuff yeah here what do you say to people who are doing this type of fraudulent activity what do you say to them if they're thinking no I'm still going to pull up I'm still going to see if I can get my B down there you're going to go to jail you know I mean you know it's it's so frustrating you know what I say to him is you know I guess really you know it's all about you what about these poor people that lost everything that had all their stuff sitting in their front yard everything from their couches to their stoves to their TVs to their personal belongings and clothes and couches and everything else all that debris got hauled away and now they're trying to rebuild in these houses they got nothing and here and you're going to rip them off and you know you're going to come in and like I said like there's plenty of examples and plenty of it I can give you tons of them you know this guy oh well you know $35,000 oh no I'll do it for three that guy has no intention to doing any work just give me the money and I'm going to take off and and so you know they really are praying and you know what I say to them is is that we're going to be here and we're going to be around uh and for those that want to keep doing it is we're going to put your tailand in jail sh is is there a b story behind the sign that's over there to your you know just just of what it is you know I mean and this guy and so that particular guy so he was out there and he says he's doing cleanup and drywall but what he actually was arrested for is doing electrical work you know and doing electrical work is a big deal you're going to burn something down he has no business doing electrical work and the other projects that he was doing so he's got this uh sign on the side of his truck you know clean up and dry roll removal well he wasn't doing cleanup and dry roll removal he was engaging in very very spe specific skilled trade of electrical work and some others that you got to be licensed for for a reason you know the other thing I would say you I didn't talk about it and we haven't mentioned it but this is also so uh unfair to the legitimate contractors who are out there who are licensed who have demonstrated the proficiencies and the skills and jump through the hoops and they're getting business taken away from them so it's not fair as well but this guy is he throws this thing on the side of his car says he's doing clean up and drywall of course there's nothing on it with licenses or anything else he shows up and he's going to be an electrician yeah it doesn't work that way you uh undercover operation did your undercover detectives put out messages quotes or how exactly did that all the above you know we had so like you said we had people walking up all the signs that Clare water had out here we were writing down phone numbers we had Undercovers making phone calls we're setting up appointments uh we see ads in different places you know it it's really you know as they would say you know unfortunately it's shooting fish in a barrel there's so much of it out there it's not hard I think in this operation going into yesterday when we started uh for the number of phone numbers that we had and people to contact us set up appointments I think we had well over 120 so you know trying and the last one down at madir beach I think we had well over 200 so finding the numbers and finding the people that are out there engaged in this this is one of those things that we had the time and the resources we could just keep this going perpetually you know five days a week seven days a week and we'd probably get as many as we're getting you know every day uh because there's so much of it going on out there are you seeing repeat offenders so far we haven't now now to take that back now in this respect not in our operation we have it but we are arresting people we have seen people that we've arrested in these operations for unlicensed Contracting that have previously been arrested for unlicensed Contracting but we haven't had somebody come back remember you know we only we did the one in Mader Beach we did the one here so not a lot of opportunity so far for that have you seen anything to this degree in the past this no this is so unprecedented you know is these storms especially hen is unprecedented for pelis County this type of unlicensed Contracting the volume of it the magnitude people from outside the area all the illegals that are here and and all what's going on we have never okay and pis County seen anything like this before this is totally Uncharted is there a particular area in Clear Water where yall are seeing is concentrated more than others so it's it's where the the areas that were most affected obviously I mean it's easy for them to post their signs and Patrol the areas that they see mountains of people's belongings on the side of the road so it's it's really easy for these folks to find their victims if you will and I think what the sheriff mentioned that what we haven't seen there's always this unlicensed Contracting going on here locally but what struck me in the times that I was out there was the frequency I came across out of state tags um every day multiple out ofate tags with with you know trucks that look to be performing trades of some type so you know that that is the the difference is that everyone gravitated to the area knowing and then they all they have to do is drive around and look where the debris fields are and look where where the devastation is and they don't have to go very far and that's where we found all the signage for the most part and ironically you would find one of these handwritten signs will do dryw wall or cleanup next to one of the county signs saying hire licensed contractors so it it certainly the signage and the messaging doesn't dissuade anyone and they're still coming from out of state for that purpose I know the dvpr website is out there for people but for people who aren't as Tech they're confused can they call your agencies if they're supposing that someone talking to might be well yeah I mean we should probably really call and you can call the pel's county construction licensing board as well uh we don't have access and direct access to those data bases for the where we could you know give it out to the public so they really shouldn't call to verify whether somebody's licensed but one of the things ask them what their license number is ask them for it it has to be in by order has got to be if they have a sign on their truck unlike this whatever uh there's no license number on there so if you see something like that and it doesn't have a license number on it doesn't have any other information doesn't say that it's it's a an entity it's an LLC it's Incorporated you see that you can very easily go on the Secretary of State's website but to your point is they can call the construction licensing board and that would be a good place to start all right thanks everybody we appreciate it thank you