Hackers strike Ohio Catholic church, steal $1.75M in email scheme

BRUNSWICK, OH (WOIO) - The St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Brunswick announced in a statement it was swindled out of $1.75M in part to an email scheme.

According to the church, the team was working on a construction project to renovate the sanctuary.

The church partnered with Marous Brothers Construction who started the project two months ago.

Everything was going according to plan until church officials say they received a phone call from the company asking about late payments.

In a written statement, the church announced that they lost the money after a third party hacked their email system.

"Upon a deeper investigation by the FBI, we found that our email system was hacked and the perpetrators were able to deceive us into believing Marous Brothers had changed their bank and wiring instructions.

“The result is that our payments were sent to a fraudulent bank account and the money was then swept out by the perpetrators before anyone knew what had happened.”

Read the full statement below.