Out-of-state scammers stole more than $317,200 from a Baltimore bank account used to pay city employees’ workers’ compensation insurance, the Baltimore inspector general announced Tuesday.
The city recovered most of the funds but ultimately lost more than $26,000.
Isabel Mercedes Cumming, Baltimore’s inspector general, published an investigative report Tuesday detailing how multiple external bank accounts withdrew $317,241 over more than a year from an account used by the city’s law department.
The bank account was a zero balance account, meaning a law department employee transferred an exact amount of money into the city’s account and a third-party vendor automatically used it to pay employees who were receiving workers’ compensation benefits — pushing the account’s balance to $0 each day and making the withdrawals hard to track.
It wasn’t until the unnamed third-party vendor noticed in January that it could not account for 358 separate transactions that occurred from November 2020 to January. Among the transactions were individual credit card bills paid using the city’s bank account number. In total, investigators found that 22 names were associated with the 358 fraudulent charges, but it is unclear whether up to 22 people were involved in the theft or one person created multiple accounts.
Breaking News Alerts
As it happens
Be informed of breaking news as it happens and notified about other don’t-miss content with our free news alerts.
A federal law…
