The recent fraud case that cost Kings County nearly $85,000 is unusual in its sophistication and comes at a time when the Treasury Department is vulnerable, county treasurer Jim Erve said this week. rice field.
As a result, Erb said the county has taken steps such as verification and external oversight to avoid such criminal activity in the future.
“I have had many fraudulent requests in the past,” Erb said. These scam emails used to be easy to spot. “
The fraud case came to the attention of the Oversight Board this month. Erb told the board that the county issued him a check for $894,000 to an unnamed person posing as a contractor who had been employed by the county nearly a year and a half ago.
“The recent incident was far more sophisticated and well-thought-out than other incidents in the past. rice field.”
The attack also occurred at a time when the office was undergoing many internal changes.
“When the funding was approved, we were in a transitional phase of training new staff and implementing a new accounting system,” Erb said.
Following the recent incident, the department implemented a series of security measures.
“One of the things we do now is always request verification that confirms any change from someone above the person making the initial request,” said Erb. Address the management of payroll requests. This will help deal with pressure from future vendors on payment timelines. “
The method of accepting department change requests will also change in the future.
“We no longer post financial institution change forms on our website. If a vendor wants a change, they must call their accounts payable representative and request a form. They do a little bit of research before they get in. We have a senior accountant in the accounts payable department.”
The Kings County Sheriff’s Office is working with a number of agencies, including the Secret Service, to investigate the incident and does not comment on ongoing investigations.
“By the time we realized the situation, it had already been five days, so we were lucky enough to get back as much money,” Erb said.
