Feds Seeking To Get $1.2M Back To City Of Millions Stolen By Hackers

NEW HAVEN, CT —A just-filed federal forfeiture complaint seeks to return nearly $1.2 million of the $6 million stolen from New Haven schools by cyberattackers last summer.

U.S. Attorney for CT Vanessa Roberts Avery, and Robert Fuller, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the FBI said their offices have seized and filed a civil asset forfeiture complaint against $1,187.677.94 that was traceable to a business email compromise attack on New Haven’s Board of Education.

As alleged in the complaint, which was filed last Thursday in U.S. District Court, "criminal actors" were able to compromise an email account associated with a member of management team of the City of New Haven’s Board of Education, per Avery.

In June 2023, they created a fake email account that mimicked the email of a bus company that held a contract with the Board of Education for bussing, the federal authorities said.

"The criminal actors used the compromised email address to send test emails between the compromised email address and the newly created fake bus company email address," it was noted in a media release from the Justice Department. "Using the fake bus company email address, the criminal actors then were able to change the bus company’s payment information from the real bus company to an account held by the criminal actors."

New Haven sent approximately $5.9 million to the account, officials said.

“While we will continue to pursue criminal prosecution of the individuals involved in this scam, recovering the victim’s money is a priority,” Avery said. ”Civil asset forfeiture allows the U.S. Attorney’s Office to recover money for victims of fraud, such as business email compromises, romances scams, confidence scams, and other crimes. As these fraud schemes often involve conversion of U.S. currency to digital assets, this process typically involves significant law enforcement resources and specialized training. In recent years, through the civil asset forfeiture process, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut has recovered millions of dollars for Connecticut victims, most of whom do not have the means nor the expertise to trace the money.”

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were able to trace and seize a portion of the stolen money. With the filing of a civil asset forfeiture complaint, the U.S. is seeking to forfeit and return the money to the City of New Haven. Approximately $3.6 million of the stolen money was previously recovered.

“Despite the advanced level of these particular cyber schemes, our highly trained law enforcement officers and agents haven been able to effectively uncover and stop the ongoing financial losses, and recover funds for the City of New Haven,” Fuller said. “Our ongoing focus will continue to be protecting those that remain vulnerable to cyber intrusion and fraud.”