Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Fresno Bee reports:
Fresno’s loss to an online phishing scam totaled more than $600,000, was part of a larger scheme targeting multiple municipalities nationwide and the FBI has identified an American suspect, Mayor Jerry Dyer announced in a news conference at City Hall.
Some details Dyer reported differed from information he shared the day prior. Dyer said he spoke to a special agent Wednesday evening and learned new information, but there were some details he wasn’t sharing so as not to further compromise the federal investigation.
The city received two fake invoices that looked identical to invoices from a city contractor working on the construction of the southeast Fresno police station. The fraud was discovered in April when the contractor threatened to walk off the job due to not receiving payment, Dyer said.
Fresno’s ABC News affiliate reports:
It was January of 2020 when the city paid, what was believed to be the contractor of the police department’s southeast station, around $324,000.
“The invoice that was submitted was nearly identical with the exception of the bank account information of where the money was to be transferred to,” said Mayor Dyer. That would be the first of two invoices paid. The second was to the tune of $289,000 in March.
By November, the FBI took over, alerting the city that Fresno wasn’t the only victim of a much larger phishing scam involving two other cities across the US. While the City of Fresno has fraud insurance, it only covers $250,000 with a $50,000 deductible.
Fresno is California’s fifth-largest city with a population of 550,000. Republican Mayor Jerry Dyer, the city’s former police chief, took office in January 2021.
“This was part of a much larger scheme that was occurring,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said. https://t.co/MoJuygQm8k
— Fresno Bee (@FresnoBee) March 10, 2022