Around $1 Million was stolen from the Caddo Parish School Board

As per a detective on Tuesday (i.e. on January 8, 2019), much of the almost $1 million that was stolen in international phishing scheme against the Caddo Public Schools have been found by the law enforcement authorities, but they haven't recovered the money yet.

Around $714,000 was found and frozen in the bank accounts of U.S., said a detective with Sheriff's Office of Caddo Parish. The name of the detective was Capt. Bobby Herring. Authorities are still looking for additional $275,000, which they say was also stolen in the fraudulent email scheme that involves the company operating Shreveport's Magnolia School of Excellence and the Caddo Schools.

On December 12, 2018, employees of Caddo Schools reported about this theft to the law enforcement authorities, said Herring. They disclosed about this theft to public on Tuesday (i.e. on January 8, 2019), in news release. In an interview, Mary Nash-Wood, the spokeswoman of the School district, said that delay in notification occurred because still the information regarding nature and scope of scam was being gathered.

The news release of the school district said that the theft happened when an unknown person fraudulently posed as the employee of Charter Schools USA that operated the Magnolia school, after using a sham e-mail account. The unknown person spoofed an official email account of Charter Schools USA for changing banking information on the
file with the Caddo Schools. As a result of which, money was sent to wrong bank account.

Magnolia School of Excellence is taxpayer-funded and privately-operated charter school. Caddo school district makes direct payments to them on the basis of enrollment. As per the Caddo district, around $988,000 was sent to wrong bank account by the district.

T. Lamar Goree, Superintendent of the Caddo Schools, told reporters on the afternoon of January 8, 2019, that the theft happened in the 2018 summer. He also said that stolen money was 1 month of payment to the Charter Schools USA.

Email account from where the communication originated was from an African country. Once it was discovered that email originated from a country of Africa, Charter Schools USA and the school district began working with Cyber Crimes Division of Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office. The FBI is also assisting sheriff's office. Goree further said that a law firm of California was hired by Caddo Parish School Board to help in recovering the funds.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/21/2019