US Attorney’s Office files to recover $6.7M stolen in scam against City of Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After the City of Portland was targeted by a $6.7 million fraud scheme earlier this year, the United States Attorney’s Office has announced it is taking action to return the lost funds.

According to the City of Portland, they originally became aware of the scam back in February, when someone posing as a contracted employee with the city gained access to a payment system, then rerouted the contractor’s bank information to the scam account.

The USAO said the city then notified law enforcement in March when the contractor’s intended payment – which was set aside for use in the Bull Run Filtration Project – instead went to an unauthorized bank account.

Initially, the city filed a lawsuit against a New York law firm whose account held the deposited funds, Portland officials said.

According to that suit, a man going by the alias John Lisman allegedly fraudulently presented himself as a vendor for the Bull Run Filtration Project and manipulated city officials into rerouting the $6.7 million. However, the lawsuit was dropped after the law firm provided information supporting that they were also a victim, according to the city.

On April 16, the USAO and FBI obtained a search warrant and officials successfully seized the funds, which were then placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, USAO said.

Now, USAO announced Friday they have filed a civil forfeiture action to recover the funds alleged to be the proceeds from the fraud scheme.

They add this will “allow the government to move quickly to seize the stolen funds, seek legal ownership of them, then promptly return them to the victims.”