The Santa Rosa County Clerk of Court and Comptroller's Office reported Friday that it had recovered $629,000 in county funds stolen when fraudsters used a compromised vendor email address to snatch a payment intended for Milton-based Roberson Underground Utility.
It was also announced a person of interest has been identified and law enforcement is attempting to make contact with that person, who resides out of state.
The theft of the vendor payment, which totaled $853,000 , was made public in April. County Commissioners voted soon after to reimburse Roberson Underground Utility, a family-owned business that had won the contract for a $5.4 million drainage project to address flooding issues within the Metron Estates subdivision in Pace.
In the Friday release, Clerk of Court Don Spencer described the utility company as "the victim of a sophisticated business email compromise scam."
Contacted for comment, he deferred questions about the ongoing investigation to the Milton Police Department. Officials were unavailable late Friday afternoon.
The Milton Police Department is continuing to investigate the theft, the release said, with assistance from the FBI and Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office.
In the immediate aftermath of the breach of security, Spencer vowed to tighten up his office's system of disbursing checks to vendors , even possibly taking the step of forcing companies doing business with the county to show up in person to sign in before receiving payment for services.
More: Santa Rosa Clerk reveals the nature of last week's theft of office funds
On Friday he announced the Clerk's Office has engaged the services of PaymentWorks to enhance payment security measures. PaymentWorks will be responsible for all vendor verification prior to payment and indemnify the Clerk of Court and Board of County Commissioners for up to $2,000,000 per transaction, the release said.
The partnership will allow the Clerk's Office to return to the way it had conducted business prior to the April theft.
“Partnering with PaymentWorks gives us an extra layer of protection when making electronic payments," Spencer said in the release. "It also protects the county’s vendors from the kind of fraud that occurred.”
Spencer said criminal entities have shown their hands with similar recent thefts or hacking of agency computers across Northwest Florida.
“With the recent cybersecurity attacks involving Ascension Sacred Heart, the city of Pensacola, the First Judicial Circuit of Florida, and this particular vendor, it’s clear that criminals are looking to victimize non-profits, governmental agencies, and those who do business with them,” he said in the release.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa recovers most of $850K stolen in April; IDs person of interest
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