City of Portland recovers $6.7M from phishing scheme

The city of Portland announced Friday that it has recovered the $6.7 million dollars it sent to a person posing as a vendor on the $2 billion Bull Run water filtration project.

Portland rolled out a new vendor management system earlier this year. In February, a person posing as a real vendor sent an email to the system asking to change the vendor’s bank account information.

The person eventually convinced an employee to send a link that allowed them to reset the vendor’s payment information.

On March 21, the city initiated a payment of $6,748,680.68 to what they thought was a vendor on the Bull Run water filtration project. At this point though, the person’s suspicious activity came to the attention of the FBI, according to a lawsuit the city filed to recover the funds, and the banks handling the transaction alerted the city and stopped the payment.

The U.S. Marshals Service had custody of the funds in April while local and federal law enforcement agencies investigated the fraud, according to a news release from the city at that time.

Friday, the city issued a release saying it received the $6.7 million this week. It also said that the criminal investigation is ongoing and “expected to be lengthy.”

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