Federal authorities say they have recovered a large chunk of the $3 million that was bilked from the Chittenden Solid Waste District earlier this year as part of a cyber fraud scheme.
The fraud was connected to the waste district’s long-awaited new materials recycling facility, which is being built with a $22 million bond approved by Chittenden County voters.
According to court documents, the scheme began in late January, when the district received an email that appeared to be from a local construction company involved in the project. The email directed the waste district to send a pair of $1.5 million payments owed to the construction company into a different bank account.
The waste district’s finance director sent the $3 million into the scam account in late February. A week later, the district was notified of the error and alerted both federal authorities and Citibank, which froze the scam account.
By then, the fraudsters had managed to withdraw or spend $750,000, court records show.
The government has since seized the remaining $2.27 million, which it says will now be returned to the waste district.
Federal authorities say billions of dollars are stolen each year through email phishing scams and other fraudulent online schemes, and those are just the incidents that get reported. People likely fail to report many additional thefts because they are ashamed or don’t want the public attention.
In a press release on Tuesday, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan A. Ophardt commended the waste district for owning up to the mistake.
“Recoveries of stolen funds from sophisticated cyber actors are only possible when impacted entities quickly alert law enforcement about their losses,” he said.
News of the recovery comes days after the waste district implemented a new $1 facility fee for vehicles that visit its drop-off centers. Sarah Reeves, CSWD’s executive director, said the fees were already planned and had nothing to do with the losses incurred from the fraud.
“The timing was unfortunate and coincidental,” she said. The new revenue will instead be used to help pay for routine maintenance, replace equipment and improve safety measures.
As for the recycling center project, the fraud has forced the district to “get creative” in its payment structures and to dip into its reserves more than expected, Reeves said. But the project remains on schedule, with an anticipated completion date of early next year.
Meanwhile, an internal investigation conducted by the district’s board appears to have confirmed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s belief that no one at the organization was involved in the fraud.
Reeves said the district has tightened its digital security in light of the incident, including more stringently investigating whenever a vendor asks to change how they’re being paid.
“This happened even though our protocols were followed, and that’s the lesson here,” Reeves said. “These criminals are getting more and more sophisticated, and these attacks are happening literally every day.”
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