OTC stole $900,000 in online fraud, officials say

Ozarks Technical Community College announced on Friday that it was robbed of $900,000 by online fraud.

CTA Chancellor Hal Higdon said the incident was discovered last week and immediately reported to the Springfield Police Department, who notified federal authorities.

“We are working very hard to help prosecute these criminals,” he told the News-Leader.

Higdon said the college was required to remain secretive about the details of the crime, including the federal agencies involved, at the request of law enforcement leading the ongoing investigation.

“We will provide a fuller account of the incident as soon as we can,” he said in a press release.

“Although the responsibility for this incident rests entirely with the criminals who committed this act, I want to assure you that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that such a thing does not happen again.”

Higdon said the suspect or suspects apparently posed as one of his online vendors and managed to “direct college payments into a fraudulent account.”

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The Springfield-based college said the loss of funds will not impact students, classes or college operations.

“We hope these criminals are brought to justice quickly and that we can recover these funds,” Higdon said in a statement.

Higdon said the college never lost control of its data and no personal student or employee information was compromised in the incident. “No one entered our system. There was no loss of data.”

In an interview, Higdon said the discovery of the fraud caused a strong reaction.

“Obviously we’re very angry, we’re embarrassed, we’re disappointed. It’s a mix of emotions,” he said.

“It’s horrible that there are people targeting a public community college that is dedicated to lifting people out of poverty into high-paying jobs.”

He added, “When you attack your community college, you’re basically attacking every man, woman, and child in southwest Missouri and that really makes me angry.”

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Higdon said the loss was discovered quickly and “did not take place over a long period of time”.

He said there was no indication that college vendors or employees played a role in the crime. “Vendors have nothing to do with it.”

In an interview, Higdon said it was important to make information public for the sake of transparency. “We are a public entity.”

He said the college also wants to raise awareness of how often public institutions and businesses have to deal with similar situations.

“I learned a lot in the last week about the prevalence of this,” he said.

“We now have a pandemic of people trying to steal from individuals, businesses, public entities. It’s an endemic situation and if our example can help an owner or a company or another institution to be a little more careful, that worth it. “

Claudette Riley is the News-Leader’s educational reporter. Email news tips to [email protected]