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The incident began on Friday, March 10 when an investigator with the Stamford Police, who is also a member of the FBI's Cyber Task Force, received a phone call from a local realtor who reported they had fallen victim to wire fraud, said Capt. Tom Scanlon, of the Stamford Police.
The local resident was attempting to purchase a home in Fairfield County but a suspect had somehow infiltrated their email conversations and tricked the resident into wiring the money to the fake account two days prior, Scanlon said.
The investigator confirmed the victim had filed an internet crime complaint with the FBI and they were already hard at work to freeze the account, he added.
"Thanks to the quick work of the FBI's IC3 team -- $425K out of $426K were able to be frozen, recovered, and returned within days to the victim allowing him to move forward with the purchase of the home," Scanlon said.
Scanlon said it's extremely important that these types of scams are reported to the banks and law enforcement as soon as possible. It's also good practice to always verbally confirm the bank account information is correct with your realtor.
"We are very pleased with the outcome in this case, but unfortunately other victims are often not as lucky as the suspects often move funds before the victim even realizes they have been scammed," Scanlon added.
The FBI encourages anyone that is a victim of cyber fraud to report it to the Internet Crime Center at www.ic3.gov/.
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