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Athens may be able to recover some of the money lost in a November cyber attack

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – A portion of the money the city of Athens lost in a cyber attack may be recovered, but another victim may have a claim to it as well.

In November, scammers stole $721,976.26 from the city by pretending to be Pepper Construction, the company that built the city’s new fire station and is remodeling the Armory building.

According to new court filings, $349,522.10 was recovered from the bank account used by the scammers, but it might not all be the city’s.

Regency Centers, a large commercial real estate developer based in Jacksonville, Florida, was also scammed and transferred $326,874.06 to the same account.

The cupola on top of Athens City Hall as seen from East Washington Street.
The cupola on top of Athens City Hall as seen from East Washington Street. [Haley Swaino | WOUB Public Media]
The remaining funds have been moved to a new secure bank account controlled by Republic Bank and Trust, the bank where the mule account was located.

To avoid a lawsuit, the bank is asking an Athens County judge to decide how the money will be split.

The new court filings also revealed more about how the scammers opened the account at Republic Bank.

The bank says the scammers created a prepaid debit card through a program between Republic Bank and NetSpend Corp. NetSpend develops, markets and services prepaid debit cards, and Republic Bank issues the cards and holds the funds associated with the cards in designated NetSpend deposit accounts.

In August, the scammers opened one of those accounts pretending to be Gibson Electrical & General Contractors Inc., a company in New Jersey. 

The scammers, pretending to be a representative of Pepper Construction, sent the city of Athens a form in mid-November designating a new bank account for payments to the company.

Court documents say the cyber criminals performed the same scheme against Regency Centers a week later. 

In an email to WOUB, Athens Deputy Service-Safety Director Andrew Chiki said the city is letting the legal process play out.

“We will allow our legal teams to work with the courts on their efforts to recover the stolen funds and bring them back to the City,” he said. “This is also not the end of the investigations. The criminal and civil investigations are still very active.”

WOUB reached out to Regency Centers for comment and a spokesman for the company said they are looking into the situation.