Chris Swecker, head of the FBI's criminal investigative division, said federal authorities were on the lookout for a range of fraud schemes to profit from the catastrophe, including on charitable contributions.

"There are about 4,000 sites advertising Hurricane Katrina relief services," he said.

"We've looked at about 2,100 of those sites. One of the critical indicators is there's about 60 percent of them that are coming in from overseas. That is not a reason unto itself to conclude that that's a scam website, but it is a reason to be cautious."

Swecker said Washington was working with other countries in an effort to identify who is behind the sites," peeling back the layers that accompany these various scam websites and trying to get right directly to the perpetrators."

"The last thing that we want to do is stop people from giving, but we do want people to be very cautious," he said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force would be working on preventing and cracking down on disaster-related schemes including charity fraud and insurance fraud.

Gonzales said, "To anyone who is contemplating any kind of fraudulent scheme that takes advantage of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, let me be very clear: Federal, state and local law enforcement officials are watching carefully, and we will have zero tolerance for these kinds of crimes."

Officials and charity officials said fraud schemes began to emerge within days of the disaster.

Some scams use fraudulent websites and e-mails that use "phishing" techniques that allow people to click through to a site that resembles a real charity.

Florida officials obtained a court order this month shutting down several Katrina-related websites alleged to be fraudulent including katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com, katrinarelief.com and katrinarelieffund.com.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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