FAKE ARCHITECTS BUILT HUNDREDS OF STRUCTURES

California authorities have been unraveling a decade-long scam involving a pair of phony building engineers who used stolen software to craft bogus blueprints. Wilfrido Rodriguez and Ruben Gutierrez allegedly posed as licensed professionals and using stolen software, drew up engineering and architectural plans for homes, apartments, commercial properties and strip malls in at least 56 Southern California cities beginning in 2003. Neither had the training, expertise or credentials to vouch for the safety of the building plans, and authorities are only now grasping the scope of the problem. They don’t know if the houses are safe, unsafe or suitable for habitation. The pair duped architects, builders and homeowners into believing they knew what they were doing. Now, authorities are tasked with reviewing every building the pair worked on and determining if they are structurally sound, an issue made all the more urgent given the frequency of earthquakes in California. The two men are cooperating with the sheriffs’ detectives. While sheriffs didn’t say how much the men allegedly profited on the deal, they likely made at least $2,000 to $3,000 per project on potentially several hundred projects over 11 years.
* The Bernie Madoffs of architecture. Franklin Lloyd Madoff, as it were.
* They chose architecture because telemarketing fraud is just too hard?
* At least the ground the buildings are on is stable. It’s not like California has any fault lines or anything.
* These guys didn’t do any work in Tainan, Taiwan, by chance, did they?
* Personally, I think it’s a little late to say the scam is unraveling.
* After 13 years, isn’t it more like the scam worked great?
* It’s called “on the job training.” Not that uncommon really.
* Can we be fair for a second? Everyone who ever landed a job has pretended that they knew what they were doing a little bit.