By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Indiana State Police are looking into Kosciusko County’s loss of more than $313,000 via fraud.

Kosciusko County Commissioners President Cary Groninger told InkFreeNews that information on Tuesday, June 7. The county recently lost the funds to an online scam via a fraudulent Automated Clearing House (ACH) network request.

The county uses ACH to pay bills online.

Groninger referenced the investigation during the commissioners’ regular meeting on Tuesday.

Kosciusko County Auditor Michelle Puckett gave an update to commissioners then on processes the county’s put into place since the fraud occurred.

“Over the past several weeks, we have utilized every resource that we have access to, to come together and really add additional safeguards in our process,” said Puckett. “We have at least three separate verification processes now. That was implemented immediately to verify all of the information for vendors initially and account numbers as well, so just wanted to let you know that we have put this in place.”

“There was a time we were holding ACHs until this was finalized,” she continued. “We’ve had several people review the process. This will be a living, breathing document. We will review it periodically, probably quarterly, so as we receive other information in feedback from individuals we can update our current process that we have in place.”

“Michelle, I appreciate you coming and speaking on this,” responded Groninger. “I know you’ve worked really hard the last couple weeks really trying to get a solid plan for us to move forward with, so I appreciate that and your team’s work there.”

“One of the other things just for the record, this is an ongoing investigation with this and there’s going to be multiple jurisdictions that are involved in that investigation, both state and federal,” he continued. “So it is ongoing and once those findings are done, we’ll release that to the public, but we do appreciate everything you’ve done to help guard our funds there.”

Groninger also told InkFreeNews later that commissioners don’t know how long the investigation will take.