N-DEx

The Gulfport, Mississippi Police Department receives five complaints in a single day from citizens who paid a contractor in advance to repair hurricane roof damage, but he never came back to do the work. The callers all said that a white male solicited them at their door. He said he could fix their roof that afternoon, but needed $200 in advance to purchase supplies. The man said he would leave his toolbox containing expensive tools as collateral. But the man never returns and the victims find the toolbox empty. None of the callers know the man’s name, but one recalls seeing a magnetic sign on the door of the truck which read "Roof Fixers.”

The detective searches N DEx for "Roof Fixers.” N DEx returns previously reported similar incidents from Port Arthur, Texas, Lake Charles, Louisiana and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi which contained the phrase "Roof Fixers.” The detective then used N DEx to display the incident locations on a map along with date/time of the incidents. From the displayed map, the detective discovers that the similar complaints all occurred within days of each other along the Interstate 10 corridor that sustained damage from Hurricane Katrina. From the map, Gulfport police project that Biloxi, Mississippi could be the next target of the fraud perpetrator. Gulfport police telephone Biloxi police, advise them of the trend, and issue an Nlets bulletin and an N DEx notification message. Contained in the Nlets and N DEx bulletins/alerts is a notification that additional details relative to the investigation of the “Roof Fixers” scam are available and can be viewed in N DEx using collaboration tools.