Alamogordo police, city fraudulent email probe continues

ALAMOGORDO – Alamogordo Police Department detectives continue their investigation of fraudulent emails Friday after City Finance Department employees received the fraudulent emails that asked employees to change account payment information of vendors then payments went out to a fraudulent account, a city spokeswoman said.

“We’ve reported it to the police department, FBI and IRS, and their handling that from here,” City Attorney Petria Schreiber said. “No resident’s information was compromised or given out at all. It was suggested that we report it to the IRS so we have. All of the residents’ information is in tack and safe. The emails attempted to make payment changes on another account.”

Schreiber said some payments were made to the fraudulent account.

“There was a fraudulent email that changed some information and some payments went out,” she said.

Alamogordo City Administration discovered that the City Finance Department was the victim of the fraudulent emails Thursday after city finance employees were misled by official looking emails from CES, according to an Alamogordo city press release.

Schreiber said CES is a cooperative buying group.

The fraudulent emails asked to make changes to account information that led to payments being redirected to a fraudulent vendor account, according to the release.

“The city has taken appropriate action with the involved personnel, and is working with the Alamogordo Police Department, FBI, the city’s insurance company, New Mexico Municipal League, the New Mexico State Auditor and the city’s outside auditor, Hinkle & Landers, to remedy this situation as quickly as possible,” City Manager Maggie Paluch stated in the release. “Currently city services will not be impacted and the budget is secure.”

Schreiber said it is standard practice for the city to report the incident to the IRS and New Mexico Municipal League.

The Municipal League is our insurance company, she said.

“We let them know what’s going on,” Schreiber said. “We just sent them (N.M. Municipal League) a forum. We’ve talked to the State Auditor. We’ve talked to many different law enforcement agencies.”

She said the city takes this incident very seriously.

“We’re doing everything that we can to recover that money,” Schreiber said. “We take the use and protection of tax payer money very seriously. We will take every possible action with every law enforcement agency to recover the misdirected funds and ensure guilty parties are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We will not rest until every avenue is exhausted.”

She said city administration’s full and undivided attention is focused on this matter.

Schreiber said a complete audit and review of the finance departments’ actions are being conducted.