Eagle Mountain falls victim to $1.3 million cyber crime

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah– Officials with Eagle Mountain City say they lost $1.3 million to an unknown cyber criminal in August.

Tyler Maffitt, Communications Manager with the city, tells KSL Newsradio’s “Dave and Dujanovic” they became aware of the crime on August 31.

“Within minutes we were on the phone with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Maffitt said.

Maffitt said the criminal posed as a vendor the city was working with for an infrastructure project, and set up a money transfer to their account, rather than the actual vendor’s.

“Through communication with the vendor who was supposed to receive the payment…we realized…we were the victim of a cyber crime,” Maffitt said.

Maffitt said the city is now ramping up money transfer policies and are working with the FBI to find out who took the money.

“[Eagle Mountain] is interested in pursuing this to the end and bringing these criminal perpetrators to justice,” Maffitt said.

Luckily, there is no current evidence to believe anyones personal information was compromised. The city said in a statement, “No resident, client or vendor information was compromised in any way as a result of this incident.”

The city is currently working with their insurance company to hopefully get the money reimbursed.

Moffitt said the loss of the money will not delay the infrastructure project in question.

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