Nueces County Out $2M After Email Phishing Scam

Tribune News Service —  Nueces County lost about $2 million after its local government fell victim to an email phishing scam, county officials said.

In response, the county froze all wire transfers and is requiring residents to make all payments using paper checks, KRIS 6 News reported. Sheriff J.C. Hooper said his department has been investigating the incident for about a week. He added that federal authorities are involved in the investigation.

Hooper said the case involved the money “being sent to the wrong place,” but did not use words like cyberattack or system breach, the news station reported.

He said the county’s risk manager tried to recover what was thought to be a smaller loss through insurance, prompting the sheriff’s office to open an investigation and uncover that the county had lost a much larger dollar amount.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported that the original loss was $58,000. The county’s budget for the current fiscal year is $280 million.

“Our ultimate goal is to recoup all financial losses, and then also prosecute those accountable,” Hooper said during a news conference on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

Constance Sanchez, the county’s interim auditor, warned that these scams can happen to anyone — including the government of a county with a population of 353,000.

“These are the same people who target our grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles,” she said, “and now Nueces County.”

© 2025 the San Antonio Express-News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.