The Complex Prosecutions and Investigations Division is a small special prosecutions unit composed of eight attorneys, an investigator, a financial investigator, and two support staff.

Cases handled by this Division typically originate with a law enforcement agency. The Division uses specialized lawyer and investigator skills, usually working with law enforcement, to develop criminal prosecutions in the areas of complex, organized criminal activity, public corruption and abuse of office, large dollar employee thefts and insurance frauds, environmental crimes, investment frauds, aggravated consumer frauds, major frauds against the elderly and vulnerable victims, frauds against government, and technology crimes.

Some examples of investigations and prosecutions undertaken by the Complex Prosecutions and Investigations Division include: 

• Convicted: members of large auto theft ring
• Convicted: person who stole an elderly relative's life savings: $500,000
• Convicted: employees who stole amounts ranging from $140,000 to over $1 million from employers
• Convicted: man who murdered his wife for insurance proceeds
• Convicted: citizens who bribed a police officer to make their DUI ticket disappear
• Convicted: "travelers" in a statewide driveway paving fraud scheme and seized and forfeited sufficient property to pay significant restitution to victims
• Convicted: person who stole logs from Lake Washington and harmed salmon habitat
• Convicted: promoters of two multi-million dollar Ponzi schemes
• Convicted: hacker who damaged and shut down the King County Library Computer System.

Updated: April 12, 2001

For more information, please see: Fraud Prevention Tips.