He Faked Fire Credentials - 9 Convictions, Three Fish, One Secret Tank
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He Faked Fire Credentials - 9 Convictions, Three Fish, One Secret Tank
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There is a quiet horror in finding a humming ten-gallon aquarium and three healthy cichlids in a truck while the owner’s credentials turn out to be fake - a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator number that was never assigned and went unchecked for seven years. How did a man with a 60-dollar certificate, a notebook, and a habit of setting fires become the trusted expert on cause and origin for insurers across lower Michigan?
In this episode, we lay out the timeline from a 1991 arson conviction to the truck at a gravel access road in November 2011, showing how procedural oversights and a convincing persona let one man operate as an expert while his credential went unverified. What does it take for a fake certificate to persist for years, and who finally noticed?
Person: James M. Wells
Date: November 2011
Location: Foley Township gravel access road, Michigan
Event: Unassigned CFEI number found on reports
Status: Operated Lakeshore Fire Consulting, LLC with forged certificate
- Wells was 56 years old when deputies found his truck in November 2011 with keys in the ignition and a running ten-gallon aquarium on the passenger seat.
- He kept three cichlids named Marvin, Pete, and Dot, which he had owned for eleven years by 2011 and fed twice daily at 6 AM and 6 PM.
- In 1991 Wells filed a false insurance claim after a storage-unit fire, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, and served 14 months at a minimum-security facility, released in spring 1993.
- He paid $60 to a Traverse City graphic design shop to produce a counterfeit CFEI certificate and began accepting paid fire investigation work in autumn 2004, charging $400 for his first report.
- The IAAI credential number printed on his reports remained unassigned and unchecked from 2004 through 2011, despite the registry reflecting format changes discontinued in 2001.
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