Saskatoon says all money taken from city in $1M scam now recovered

All the money from a scam that netted more than $1 million from the City of Saskatoon this summer has been recovered.

In August, a fraudster posing as the chief financial officer of Allan Construction contacted the city and said the company's banking information had changed.

A total of $1,040,000 was transferred to the account to pay for ongoing work on Saskatoon's Sid Buckwold Bridge.

On Friday, the City announced the Ontario Superior Court had ordered three parties to return $335,000 to the City of Saskatoon. According to the city, all three claimed they had been unwitting victims of the fraudsters.

"This is exactly the outcome we have wanted for the past three months," said city manager Jeff Jorgenson in a news release. 

"We are grateful to the Court and for the efforts made by many people and organizations to recover this stolen money."

The City of Saskatoon also received $25,000 in court costs. Each defendant has 30 days to appeal the decision. The money will be held in trust until then.

In August, Jorgenson said the money was traced to between 10 and 15 bank accounts, many of them located in Canada. At that time, the city had recovered about $40,000.

The city is now working hard to reform its accounting and security systems.

"The finance team has worked closely with our internal auditors to implement appropriate controls that are now in place to help ensure that nothing like this happens again."

The city expects a report on the total cost of the recovery as well as the root causes of the fraud will be presented at city council next month.