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Phony engineers drafted hundreds of buildings in California

Contractors used phony structural engineering plans developed by the fake engineers to build hundreds of homes, apartments, commercial properties and strip malls in at least 56 Southern California cities beginning in 2003, according to an updated Fox News article published today.
Among other things, structural engineers design and certify load-bearing floor, wall and beam systems that support a structure’s weight. As they press an elevator button, most people think an approved structural engineer signed off on the plans used to construct the building that houses the elevator. However Wilfrido Rodriguez and Ruben Gutierrez allegedly used phony software and credentials to create phony blueprints that were used in the buildings. Authorities are currently in the midst of determining the scope and seriousness of the problem in a state where earthquakes are as normal as hurricanes in Florida.
“Evidence thus far uncovered leads us to believe there were hundreds of projects built on their fraudulent structural engineering,” said Tiffany Criswell, the board’s enforcement manager. “Evidence leads us to believe there are additional properties we have yet to identify.”
The two men operated their building engineering scam for more than a decade and police say neither had the training, expertise or credentials to certify the safety of buildings constructed using their bogus blueprints. “There has never been a case involving alleged engineering fraud of this magnitude,” Detective Rod Barton, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau, told FoxNews.com. “Because this involves fraud related to structural engineering, we just don’t know if the houses are safe, unsafe or suitable for habitation.”
The pair allegedly fooled architects, builders and homeowners by convincing clients that they were the real deal, Barton said. The investigation is branching out in an effort to find and inspect all of the structures the two men created plans for to determine if they are structurally sound or if the next tremor might bring them tumbling down. Investigators are working with a sense of urgency given the frequency of earthquakes in California.
“A significant concern is foundations,” said Panos Prevedouros, a professor and chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii-Manoa told Fox. “Experienced drafters can work out safe designs for small masonry structures, but proper foundation design and specialized structural components require detailed engineering analysis.”
To date there have been no major structural failures or loss of life tied directly to the engineering fraud case, however authorities do not even know exactly how many buildings are involved or where they are located.
“We want to make sure people are safe,” Barton said. “There is a reason all these requirements are in place. When the whole procedure is circumvented, something bad can happen.”
The investigation has been simmering since April of 2014 when a professional in the building industry reported being offered a deal by the two that did not seem right.
“Up until then, nobody had any knowledge that this fraud was occurring,” Barton told FoxNews.com. “We visited 56 cities from San Bernardino and Riverside to Ventura County. Our nexus were the initial files Palos Verdes Engineering identified, and then we segued into other projects. It was a lot of groundwork.”
The suspects are currently cooperating with sheriffs’ detectives and have not been formally charged, however their legal status is subject to change. The sheriff’s office did not estimate how much profit the pair made from deals but experts in the industry told the Fox it involves several hundred projects over 11 years that pay between $2,000 and $3,000 per drawing.

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