Sonoma County authorities want the public, especially the elderly, to be aware of a spate of scams involving couriers and demands for cash withdrawals under false pretenses. But in one recent case, an arrest has been made.

An elderly Sonoma County couple was recently manipulated into handing over approximately $28,000 to a fraud operation whose members posed as US Customs and Border Protection officers, as KRON4 reports. The callers told the victims that a family member had been detained and that money was needed immediately to cover legal expenses and secure their release — a claim that was entirely fabricated. The couple was then walked through a series of wire transfers and cash withdrawals, with some of the cash handed off to couriers at multiple locations around Sonoma County.

On Sunday morning at 5:30 am, a man reportedly knocked on the couple's front door to collect what the scammers expected would be another package of cash. The couple had by then alerted authorities, and Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies responded and arrested Marco Antonio Garcia-Hernandez, 40, of Los Banos.

The suspect reportedly told investigators he had been dispatched to Sonoma County via instructions sent over text messages and WhatsApp, with directions to collect a package from the victims. He was booked on attempted grand theft, obtaining money by false pretenses, and elder theft over $950, and he had an outstanding warrant from another county as well.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office says the scheme is part of a broader fraud trend known as the "courier scam," which involves impersonating government officials, law enforcement, or attorneys and then sending a physical courier to collect cash directly from the victim's home — a method that sidesteps the electronic paper trails that might otherwise flag a wire transfer as fraudulent.

We've covered similar cases to this before in the Bay Area. In April 2025, we reported on a very similar scheme in which a scammer nearly bilked an elderly Atherton man out of $15,000 via a fake PayPal alert before the man's caregiver and family caught on and the would-be courier was taken into custody. In that case, as with this one, the scam targeted an elderly victim using manufactured urgency, and the pretense of authority.

Some of these scams also involve imitating the voices of family members on the phone, something that has become far easier with the rise of AI. As recently as last week we reported on an East Bay woman who was scammed out of thousands of dollars after an AI clone of her daughter's voice convinced her she had been kidnapped by a drug cartel.

The growth in these cases is genuinely alarming. FBI data released this spring show that complaints about government-impersonation scams nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025 — from around 17,300 to more than 32,500 — resulting in roughly $800 million in losses last year alone. The FBI separately warned that in-person courier pickups are increasingly the preferred collection method in such scams, with 98% of identified courier scam victims being over the age of 60.

The Marin County Sheriff's Office issued its own warning last year about a surge in exactly this type of scheme hitting North Bay residents.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information about this fraud operation to contact their tip line at 707-565-2650.

Related: Local Woman Bilked Out of Thousands After Scammers Clone Daughter’s Voice With AI

Ramesh Nathan was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering for scamming local investors, including veterans, with false claims about a fake space tech company and using their money for personal expenses.

A federal jury in San Francisco convicted Ramesh Kris Nathan, 43, on Thursday of six counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering after he defrauded investors with promises of futuristic space technology. According to Bay Area News Group, Nathan claimed his company, Relativity Research Fund, was developing spacecraft, propulsion systems, and robotics, boasting of worldwide offices, massive profits, and an upcoming Nasdaq listing. In reality, the company had no employees, operations, or revenue.

Between 2016 and 2017, Nathan took about $50,000 from investors — many of them military veterans — using false promotional materials, a fake company website, and an intermediary to lure victims. Instead of funding tech innovation, Nathan spent the money on personal expenses and overseas transfers to his mother and ex-girlfriend. Nathan was arrested in 2019 while trying to leave the US.

Prosecutors and the FBI said Nathan betrayed the trust of investors with "fantastic tales" and "science fiction.” He now faces up to 20 years in prison for each fraud charge and 10 years for each laundering charge, with sentencing set for June 13.

Image: Ken Lund/Flickr

An apparently Bay Area-based con artist was on the verge of scamming an elderly Atherton man out of $15,000, but fortunately his caregiver and family intervened, and the would-be con artist was taken into custody.

It’s not news to anyone that scammers love to target older people, who are perhaps a little more trusting, and often a little less sophisticated when it comes to modern-day apps and digital tools. KRON4 brings us the story of the latest attempted tech scam that targeted an elderly man in Atherton, in which a woman nearly scammed the man out of $15,000, until a caregiver and the man’s daughter were able to intervene and put the swindle to a halt.    

The scheme started with a phishing email, telling the man that “funds had been transferred out of his PayPal account without authorization,” according to the Atherton Police Department. That managed to get his phone number, and a woman called him posing as a PayPal representative. She convinced him to withdraw $15,000 out of his bank account, to supposedly pay for the unauthorized withdrawal, and instructed him to give that money to a representative that would come to his house.

“Fortunately, an alert caregiver contacted the elderly resident’s daughter who contacted the Atherton Police,” the City of Atherton said in a statement. “Our officers immediately responded to the location, intercepted the female suspect and took her into custody without incident.”

The suspect is not named in the announcement. But it sounds like she was apprehended at his home, and in the Bay Area.

There are a few other common scams going around these days. One that preys on older people is known as the “grandparent scam,” faking a young family member's voice and trying to get the victim to wire them a huge sum of money to get a kid out of fictional legal trouble. Scammers are also impersonating government agents, posing as computer tech support, and of course there are those fake FasTrak texts and bogus ‘unpaid parking tickets’ texts.

Law enforcement suggests not sending money or transfers to people you don’t know personally, to not click on links or open the attachments in unsolicited emails or texts, to call loved ones directly back if you receive a notice about some sort of financial crisis, and to not pay agencies who send texts or phone calls claiming you owe the government money. If you’re caring for older people, urge them to talk to family members or friends if prompted to enter a large financial arrangement.

Related: Beware: Those ‘Unpaid Parking Invoice’ Tickets Texts Are a Complete Scam, Everybody [SFist]

Image: Marques Thomas via Unsplash

• Last week, a crypto trader died by a Russian Roulette-style suicide during a live stream on X, proclaiming "If I die, make me a meme coin" after losing his last $500 in a meme coin scam. Within minutes of his death, coins with his username @MistaFuccYou began appearing on the market, and the live-stream continued for an additional 30 minutes. [MSN]
• The wife of Ulises Peña Lopez, a Sunnyvale man who was detained by ICE last week, is sounding the alarm about his mistreatment by ICE agents. Lopez suffers from severe medical conditions and is reportedly experiencing paralysis on the right side of his body while in isolation at the detention center. [Newsweek]
• There were nearly 140 illegal curb-painting complaints submitted through SF's 311 portal between mid-June 2024 through January 2025. Apparently one culprit has been contributing to an impressive portion of the painted curbs and leaving handwritten notes on official SFMTA envelopes threatening to tow neighbors' cars. [KQED]

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• A teenager is in critical but stable condition after being pistol-whipped and shot at in East Oakland on Thursday night. [East Bay Times]
• Online merchants selling sexual health products are being censored by Amazon's prudish "adult" content rules. [Wired]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

An untold number of San Franciscans have received a text message claiming they owe money for unpaid parking tickets, but this is a pretty poorly executed scam that appears to have its origins outside the US.

It was around this time last year that we noted that scam texts claiming you have unpaid FasTrak fines were popping up on Bay Area phones, and these are still going around (I got one of these texts last Thursday, and the sender was a Hotmail account). The con artists got slightly more sophisticated last fall when they started putting up fake QR codes on parking meters to collect payments.

But the old brute-force text message tactic is rearing its head again, as KGO reports that many San Franciscans are getting scam texts demanding $35 parking ticket payments, and many people receiving these texts do not even have cars or park anywhere in the city.

Scam, right? I don’t even have a car
byu/hjhhh888 insanfrancisco

One Redditor posted receiving the scam text message on Tuesday, with wording consistent with the message “This is a final reminder from City of San Francisco regarding the unpaid parking invoice. A $35 daily overdue fee will be charged if payment is not made today.”

In fact, more than 20 people responded to the above post saying they’d gotten the same text. And as many have pointed out, the sender has a “514” area code that is assigned to Montreal, Quebec. (Though maybe the number is spoofed, and they got the “415” backward?)

Either way, the SF Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) has acknowledged they are aware of these texts, and reminds you that they are a scam. “Some customers have reported receiving text messages notifying them of unpaid parking citations and providing a link to a website where they can pay,” that agency says. “This website is fraudulent and not related to the SFMTA. Please do not use this link to pay any citation. The SFMTA does not request payment by text with a link to a website.”

The SFMTA posted their own example of this ruse, and indeed, the specimen they posted also originates from the 514 area code.

Either way, we checked the “parkingcityofsanfrancisco.com” website listed in the text, and the website has already been disabled. (If you've already regrettably paid, SFMTA says to “consider contacting your bank or credit card company immediately to report the charges.”

The site is registered anonymously, with the only identifiable information being a web-hosting service called NiceNIC. And unsurprisingly, this hosting service advertises the ability to “Register Domain with Bitcoin & Crypto.”

Related: Avoid Being Scammed By Fake FasTrak Texts Telling You to Pay Penalties [SFist]

Image: hjhhh888 via Reddit

More than 20% of all cryptocurrency fraud happened right here in California last year, and the FBI San Francisco Field Office was kept busy, dealing with a staggering $260 million in crypto scams in 2023 alone.

If you follow tech news or specific sources like Web3 Is Going Great, you may feel like you hear about cryptocurrency scams every day.  And maybe you do! Just yesterday, a disbarred Beverly Hills lawyer was sentenced to five years in prison for a $9.5 million crypto scam that sold customers on “trading bots” that did not exist. Last month, an East Bay grandmother got scammed out of $50,000 by con artists impersonating her grandson and claiming he needed cryptocurrency for DUI bail. And also last month, an LA man was arrested for his role in a crypto theft and laundering scheme that fraudulently netted an eye-popping $230 million.

The FBI reported in early September that nationwide, that agency had reported $5.6 million in crypto fraud in 2023. But today we got more detailed regional numbers. And the FBI’s San Francisco office announced that California had the most crypto fraud in 2023, with $1.15 billion in losses, more than 20% of all crypto fraud in the nation.    

“The FBI’s 2023 Cryptocurrency Fraud Report reveals that California experienced the highest cryptocurrency-related losses in the nation, totaling $1.15 billion,” the FBI SF Office said in a statement. “Within the FBI San Francisco Field Office’s territory, losses amounted to $260,313,902, with 1,226 victims across 15 counties, including Alameda, San Francisco, and Santa Clara.”

These are 2023 numbers, so they don’t even count the Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX scam, as FTX declared bankruptcy in 2022. Nor would they include that Twitter hack of 2020 where the accounts of Apple, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Kanye West had Bitcoin scammers taking over their accounts.  

But when even the Republican nominee for President of the United States is pushing a crypto scheme, you know we’re in uncharted waters.

The FBI iterates that legitimate law enforcement or government agencies would never ask for payment in cryptocurrency. They also warn of scammers that use websites that appear to be legitimate, but are knock-offs of respected brands. You can file a report with the FBI if you're a victim.

And here’s something wild we discovered while researching this story — there is actually a cryptocurrency token called SFIST! We have nothing to do with it, I cannot tell you want any of those words above even mean, and their “SFist” actually stands for the word “SuperFIST.” But if someone says they’re trying to sell you some SFist crypto, well, we don’t know anything about it, man.

Related: Sigh, Someone’s Trying to Do This NFT-Only Club and Workspace Thing Again, Calling It a ‘Crypto Sanctuary’ [SFist]

Image: SAN ANSELMO, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 15: In this photo illustration, the Coinbase and Bitcoin logos are displayed on a phone screen on February 15, 2024 in San Anselmo, California. Coinbase stock has risen 5 percent ahead of the company reporting fourth-quarter earnings today on news that Bitcoin has surged above $52,000. (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

We are in era where AI can recreate someone’s voice, and scammers are taking notice, with one San Rafael couple almost paying $15,000 to con artists who’d accurately mimicked their son’s voice in a panicked phone call.

A San Rafael mother received a terrifying phone call in October, and a voice on the other line was a perfect replica of her son saying, “Mom, mom, I’ve been in a car accident!” Then another man came on the line saying that he was a police officer, that her son had run a stop sign and injured a pregnant woman in the accident, and that he was going to be taken to jail. This was followed by another call from someone claiming to be a local public defender, saying that she and her husband needed to pay $15,000 bail ASAP to get their son out of jail.

Except the son was nowhere near the scene of this fake San Luis Obispo auto accident which never took place. He was in his living room studying throughout all of these phone exchanges. And as the Chronicle reports, it was an AI-generated version of the son’s voice that scammers used to set the scheme in motion.

“Twenty years ago, you needed the resources of a Hollywood studio or a nation state to pull that off,” FBI San Francisco special agent in charge Robert Tripp tells the Chronicle. Tripp says that scammers can now “fabricate a voice using AI tools that are available either in the public domain for free, or at a very low cost.”

This particular scheme was eventually foiled, several hours in, when father Andy Trapp called the San Luis Obispo police and jail, only to find no record of their son being arrested or incarcerated. Trapp said it set off his alarm bells when the so-called public defender said the money would be picked up by a courier coming to the Trapps’ home.

So yes, it’s great that the Trapps were not scammed out of the $15,000. But the San Rafael Police Department reportedly told them they cannot pursue or prosecute the case, illustrating how the law may not have caught up with the expanding risks of AI tools in the hands of bad players.

And it’s not all that reassuring that the FBI encourages you to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which they evaluate for trends, because the FBI cannot be sure whether the perpetrators are domestic. Meanwhile, the California Attorney General’s office also has a consumer complaint form to file against unethical businesses or companies. But again, these forms are not going to get fast action against a form of crime that may be expanding rapidly.

Related: Biden Administration Issues Executive Order on AI Safety Requiring Testing of New Tools [SFist]

Image: Voice assistant concept. Vector sound wave. Microphone voice control technology, voice and sound recognition. Hi-tech AI assistant voice, background wave flow, equalizer. (Getty Images)

An alleged con artist who’d escaped to Greece is accused of making $10 million pretending his company was the Yellow Pages, and billing businesses for "unpaid invoices" that never actually existed.  

The concept of the “Yellow Pages” is so old that many of you readers may not remember that every household used to have that thick, yellow paperback book to look up phone numbers for everything from ordering a pizza to buying a diamond wedding ring. It was before the internet, it was all we had! But according to a U.S. Department of Justice announcement on Tuesday, a Canadian/Lebanese citizen named Nemr Hallak was just extradited from Greece to San Francisco to face charges for sending businesses bogus Yellow Pages invoices, for Yellow Pages that did not even exist.

Hallak reportedly made more than $10 million with this scheme.

The US Attorney's Office Northern California District charges that “between January 2010 and August 2014, Hallak and others operated a ‘business directory’ telemarketing scam. Using a variety of means, including false and misleading cold calls and bogus invoices, Hallak and his co-defendants deceived churches, doctors’ offices, non-profits, mom-and-pop stores, and small businesses into paying for business directory services they neither ordered nor received.”

Per the feds, the bogus invoices ranged anywhere from $400 to $1,800. And apparently many businesses just paid the invoices to make the so-called “bill collector” go away. But it worked so many times that Hallak and his co-conspirators apparently netted $10.8 million over a four-year period.

Hallak was first indicted for the crime way back in 2016, which may explain why he bolted for Greece. He was arrested in Greece on an Interpol Red Notice, and extradited back to SF, where he had his first court appearance Monday.  

He’s charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. Hallak is scheduled to appear again in an SF federal courthouse on December 21.

Related: Scammers Are Spoofing SF Sheriff’s Phone Number, Demanding Bogus Fines Be Paid [SFist]

Image: Businessman searching for something in yellow pages through indexes (Getty Images)

Don't take a call if your caller ID identifies the caller as “SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY,” and don’t pay the $5,000-$10,500 fine they’re demanding for some non-existent arrest, as it’s the latest scam hitting San Francisco.

There’s a new scam in town, which involves impersonating the sheriff in town. KPIX reports that scammers have been spoofing a number that appears to be that of the SF Sheriff’s Office on your caller ID. The caller ID number displays as “SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY,” and once these imposters have you on the phone, they claim you have an arrest on your record or that you failed to show for a court date, and you can only make these problems go away by paying them several thousands of dollars over the phone.

“Thieves claiming to work for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office have been calling residents by phone and demanding thousands of dollars as part of an imposter scam,” the Sheriff's Office said in a Tuesday announcement. “The individuals will often call from a spoofed caller ID ‘SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY’, identify themselves as a specific deputy or sergeant, and threaten arrest for failing to respond to a federal warrant or subpoena, for not appearing for jury duty, and for not taking care of citations.”

The con artists then say that you can make the matter go away with a simple and immediate payment to them between $5,000 and $10,500, right over the phone. And reportedly, they have conned at least one SF victim out of the sum.

As a reminder, the SF Sheriff’s Office does not collect fees over the phone under circumstances.

If you receive one of these scam phone calls, you’re asked to call 415-554-7225 to report it. You can also file a report online to the FBI – Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.IC3.Gov, or to the Federal Trade Commission at www.reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Related: Creep Impersonating SFPD Calls Residents, Claims Sexting Investigation [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The Department of Emergency Management is warning San Francisco residents of a person (or persons) claiming to be an officer with the SFPD calling and texting unsuspecting members of the public and telling them that he is investigating them for sending nude pictures to a woman. So reports Bay City News, which notes that the warning went out last Thursday, and that the caller has spoofed the phone number of the police's non-emergency line.

Using the name Edward Johnson or Jeffrey Johnson, the person has both called and texted people with the false investigation claims — although it is unclear what, exactly, the person is seeking to get out of it besides being a weirdo. BCN notes that people are being advised not to send the scammer money, so he may be running some sort of convoluted blackmail operation. Regardless, it's definitely creepy, and a person impersonating officials in positions of power can result in dangerous situations.

So, if you're the sort of person who even answers unknown-number calls, and someone calls you and says they're investigating you for sending nude pics to a woman, no need to get upset. Just hang up with the expletive of your choice. At this time it is unknown if anyone has fallen for the scam.

Related: San Mateo Teen Impersonates Cops, Sells Pot

A woman once described by the SF Chronicle as an "accidental entrepreneur" is now cooling her heels in San Francisco County Jail, and faces accusations of raking in thousands of online funding bucks for allegedly pretending to have a rare blood cancer.

According to the India West newspaper, Manisha Nagrani was arrested in San Francisco on February 26 in downtown San Francisco, and was booked into SF County Jail on charges of "false personation; receiving or buying stolen property; 2nd degree commercial burglary; and acquiring access cards without the cardholder or issuer’s consent."

The San Francisco Sheriff's Department confirms that Nagrani remains in custody today, as she is also the subject of an unresolved no-bail warrant from Santa Clara County from 2011.

India West reports that in 2014, Nagrani announced via Facebook that she was a victim of "Myelodysplastic syndromes, a blood disorder affecting stem cells in bone marrow."

India West reports that Nagrani, who also had "several fake profiles" on the social network intended to "give the illusion of supporters who were organizing the various fundraising campaigns," increased the urgency of her (allegedly untrue) diagnosis on on May 27, 2015, when she wrote:

Twenty days ago I received the news that no one wants to hear - my body is failing at its fight against the MDS. I received an 'official' expiration date.

Three to four months I was told; one hundred days, give or take. That barely takes me to my birthday - barely makes it to the half marathon I'd plan to walk instead of run because of my failing health and strength.

If my doctors are right I won't be celebrating Thanksgiving again, I won't see my God-children celebrate their next birthdays, I won't have the chance to experience some beautiful dreams on my bucket list.

That's when, India West reports, the money really began to pour in to fundraising pages on sites like gofundme, youcaring, and giveforward. Most of those pages have since been taken down, but according to India West, the giveforward alone raised "$17,552, with many donations of over $1,000."

I also found this fundraising post for Nagrani on Hub Culture, dated January of last year:

According to India West, Nagrani would allegedly use those other, fake social media profiles to post messages from "supporters" on various fundraising pages. For example, in late 2015 a "supporter" wrote:

Thanks to your kind contributions through their posts, Neesh was able to get some much needed blood (she's still about ten days behind on transfusions), blood tests and IV nutrition.

She completed a cycle of radiation just in time for Christmas! We will find out later this week what her next short term steps will be.

We are still actively fundraising for Neesh's blood transfusions and nutrition infusions as insurance will not be covering these until late January and these are essential in keeping her alive and healthy enough to receive the bone marrow transplant (the only known treatment and 'cure' for MDS).

We already had one close call with Neesh having to go without this essential treatment and it put her into the beginnings of organ failure. We cannot let this happen again.

San Francisco comedian Samson Koletkar even organized a “Humor for Hope” fundraiser for Nagrani in December of last year.

It was Koletkar who tipped India West off to Nagrani's arrest, saying that looking back, he should have realized that she wasn't actually ill.

“Just looking at her, you didn’t think she had gone through chemo and radiation and suffered a relapse. When people go through cancer treatments, they look like shit...But I gave her the benefit of doubt.”

According to Koletkar, the jig was up when a friend of Nagrani's called the police. Her roommate the confirmed to SFPD that a scam, not illness, was allegedly afoot, Koletkar says.

Another friend of Nagrani's, who donated over $1000 to her cause, says that when talking about her allegedly false illness, “She was crying. She honestly would have been a great actress with the performance she pulled." He says he is hopeful that she will receive jail time and be required to pay back her unsuspecting donors.

This isn't Nagrani's first brush with the law: Court records show that she has a 2006 arrest that ended in jail time and parole. In 2009, the SF Chronicle described her as an "accidental entrepreneur" who after losing her job in PR, "launched a matchmaking business that builds on what she describes as a natural proclivity for putting people together."

"In the ideal world," Nagrani told the Chron, "I would have a full-time job and make the matchmaking business something I can do on the side."

The San Francisco District Attorney's office is still seeking those who donated to Nagrani's alleged scam, and ask that if you're one of the victims, you give them a call at (415) 553-1754.

The claim that naming rights of McCovey Cove have been sold is a hoax and completely false.

— #OctoberTogether (@SFGiants) October 24, 2014

SFist's inbox was flooded this noontime with panicked emails from folks linking to an NBC Bay Area story headlined (at the time) "McCovey Cove Naming Rights Sold? Now It’s Called #BoatboundBay, Company Says" and a press release from a company that describes itself as "America’s leading peer-to-peer boat rental marketplace" that read "Boatbound Acquires Naming Rights to McCovey Cove." However, according to the SF Giants, this is all bunk.

"The cove will now be known as #BoatboundBay and will play host to a large crowd of boats, kayaks, and other vessels under its new name, starting today, when the San Francisco Giants host the Kansas City Royals in Game 3 of the 2014 World Series," the company sickeningly announced.

Here's the entire release if you want to read it.

"Boatbound’s director of marketing, Craig Battin, told NBC Bay Area the naming rights will last beyond the World Series," the broadcast station wrote as of this afternoon.

But, apparently not, as the SF Giants tweeted this afternoon that "The claim that naming rights of McCovey Cove have been sold is a hoax and completely false."

So what gives? Boatbound is an actual company (I'm not linking to them at publication time just in case this is an SEO scam), but pretty much anyone can send out a press release. It doesn't have to be true, or even verified. But, NBC did say that they talked to their guy, so...what?

Well, 45 minutes later, we know, as Boatbound has now tweeted this non-apology:

On the company's site, to which I will continue not to link to, they say the following:

This morning, we announced the official renaming of San Francisco’s beloved McCovey Cove to “#BoatboundBay.” As much as we’d love to have our name on one of the best boating hangouts in the Bay, we’d never dream of stealing Willie’s thunder by renaming his cove. The public response was overwhelming and we wanted to jump in before it went too far.

McCovey Cove is still McCovey Cove and as far as we know, always will be.

As further support of our hometown SF bay, McCovey Cove, and the Giants, Boatbound will be making a donation to the Port of San Francisco to help with the upkeep of McCovey Cove so it can be enjoyed safely for years to come. We hope that this hoax will help encourage the city to take this chance while it’s in the public spotlight to remove the “unofficial” name McCovey Cove and make it permanent.

You know what? Fuck you. We don't need your fucking donation.

Also:

And, finally:

East Bay false prophet Harold Camping, who claims that the rapture will occur on 5/21, has an organization, Family Radio, that has bilked listeners out of $80 million in contributions between 2005 and 2009 with tales about Saturday's impending doom. Even his very own church employees don't buy Camping's judgement day gobbledygook. CNNMoney reports:

[Not] even all of his own employees are convinced that the world is ending on Saturday.

In fact, many still plan on showing up at work on Monday.

"I don't believe in any of this stuff that's going on, and I plan on being here next week," a receptionist at their Oakland headquarters told CNNMoney.

A program producer in Illinois told us, "We're going to continue doing what we're doing."

Most recent IRS filings show that Family Radio, funded by donations, brought in $18 million in contributions in 2009. With mere hours left before being whisked away to heaven via God's fluffy white beard, one would think Camping would have already rid himself of earthly possessions. He hasn't done that yet. However, he did pen a goodbye letter, which you can read here or below.

In a failed effort to get "free food and other aid," four people were arrested on Tuesday after allegedly posing as San Bruno explosion victims. SF Chronicle reports: "The four submitted driver's license applications in which they falsely said that they lived in the burned-out area, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. They could have been eligible for free cell phones, gift cards from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and local stores such as Old Navy and Lunardi's Market." Ugh.

Niesha Taylor and Deonte Bennett of San Francisco and Sonya Smith and Lisa Justin were "booked at San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of burglary, perjury and submitting false or forged documents to a government agency."