A nonprofit group linked to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lost nearly a quarter-million dollars in an email scam.
Our Revolution, which was started by Sanders in 2016 with a mission to support a new generation of liberal leaders and ideas, admitted to losing around $242,000 in tax documents filed earlier this month and obtained by Politico.
The group “was the victim of a Business E-Mail Compromise scam that took place in December 2016 but was not discovered until January 2017, resulting in the loss of approximately $242,000 via an electronic transfer of funds to an overseas account,” the tax forms covering 2017 revealed.
The scam resulted in a 7 percent loss for Our Revolution in its total fundraising earnings in 2016.
The hack, sometimes known as a “CEO impersonation,” occurs when hackers infiltrate a company’s computer network and make a wire transfer request that appears to come from from a vendor the firm frequently engages with in business, according to an FBI report.
According to the Politico report, Our Revolution president Nina Turner blamed the scam on “an international syndicate of cyberthieves targeting nonprofit organizations globally.”
“Our Revolution worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Our Revolution’s counsel, and an independent cybersecurity consultant in an effort to identify the thieves and to recover the funds but, unfortunately, these efforts were unsuccessful,” Turner added in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner.
Politico reported that Lucy Flores, a former Our Revolution board member, said that the money stolen by the scam was part of a fundraising campaign to aid the Standing Rock Sioux Native American tribe in protesting the construction of an oil pipeline near tribal land.
The tax filing indicates that the group still gifted the tribe $242,924 using other funds it had raised.
