Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is investigating the reported scammers, who are all said to have Irish accents.Public Domain / RTÉ Prime Time
The US Department of Homeland Security and the US Attorney General are investigating a purported ring of scammers, believed to be Irish, in the Pacific Northwest, including Washington and Oregon.
The ring of allegedly Irish scammers has been investigated by Seattle's King 5 News in recent months, with the investigation featured this week on RTÉ's Prime Time. King 5's investigation was also highlighted by the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) back in July.
"Men posing as genuine builders go door to door offering to do roofing and chimney repairs, but it ends up in the victims getting scammed out of lots of money," Prime Time reported this week.
The US Attorney's Office - Western District of Washington confirmed with IrishCentral on Friday that no charges have been filed at this time, but that federal law enforcement is looking into a number of complaints.
The scam isn't new, nor is it unique to the Pacific Northwest, with federal officials previously reporting similar crimes elsewhere in the country, including in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado, and North Carolina.
In 2024, the US Attorney's Office - Western District of Washington reported that Irish brothers Patrick McDonagh and Matthew McDonagh had been sentenced to 18 months in prison in Seattle for defrauding elderly homeowners across the country.
Irish accents
Speaking with RTÉ's Prime Time, King 5's Andie Johnson said that she's spoken with dozens of victims throughout the course of her investigation.
"All these scammers go by different names, they have different business names, they're all different cases, but what we've found that connects them all is an Irish accent," Johnson said.
"All of these different men running the scam all seem to have an Irish accent."
Johnson and her King 5 colleague staged a "stake-out" to confront some of the men believed to be involved in the scam. Some of their trucks, she observed, had New York and New Jersey license plates.
According to Prime Time, police, who believe there is an organized crime ring behind the scam, have pictures and surveillance of 30 people believed to be involved in Washington state alone.
"Suspects are mainly Irish men who have come over from Ireland; they're not second- or third-generation Irish Americans," Prime Time reports.
"They seem to be there illegally, overstayed visas, and they seem to come into states via New York.
"Some of them have previously been arrested and deported back to Ireland but, in some cases, they've got back in, and they perpetrated the same crimes again."
Prime Time reports that one of the alleged suspects in Seattle is a 42-year-old man with an address in Cork who is believed to live between Ireland and the UK. This suspect was arrested in Boston for involvement in a construction fraud case, and he was deported back to Ireland last year.
Millions of dollars
Prime Time reports that victims in the Pacific Northwest have paid out tens of millions of dollars over two years. In Seattle alone, $15 million has been lost by victims.
The payments are typically cash only, so they can't be traced. King 5 and Prime Time report that in some instances, the scammers have driven their victims to ATMs to withdraw the cash.
"In terms of the money, we understand that it's laundered through businesses in New York," Prime Time reports. "Some of it is transferred into cryptocurrency and transferred overseas, and some money has been traced back here to Ireland."
Homeland Security Investigations' complaint email
Meanwhile, in August, police in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, said their investigation had been handed off to federal officials, and that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) had established a dedicated email for people to file complaints.
"Due to an increase in roofing scams reported across Washington and throughout the nation, investigations involving the roofing scam in our region are being handled by federal authorities," Redmond Police said in August.
"The alleged perpetrators of the scam — a rotating group of men posing as roofers and masons — have left behind a trail of poorly completed or unfinished home improvement projects while defrauding homeowners out of their life savings.
"Victims report that the individuals who came to their doors all spoke with distinctive Irish accents."
Redmond Police said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has established a dedicated email address for individuals who believe they may have been targeted by this roofing operation: SeattleContractorFraud@hsi.dhs.gov.