A highly sophisticated scam is hitting Mounds View and appearing to come directly from city officials.
The city says it's fake and targeting your personal information from public records it posts in its online meeting agendas and that it's now making changes.
Nathan Dornquast's information was included because he was in the midst of seeking final approval from the city to buy a parcel of land behind his house.
He says hours before that meeting he received an email from the city that included its logo, employee names and an invoice for $10,000 to settle the sale of the property.
"The $10,000 threw me because it was three times the cost of what I had already paid and it was last minute and it’s coming from the city and planning commission," said Dornquast. "I mean, I was taken."
Dornquast didn't fall for the scam. He's been an information technologist for 30 years, but despite his deep industry knowledge, Dornquast was surprised at how specific the scam was.
"The question is how was this put together, how was this incorporated, how was this done," said Dornquast. "Are there individuals doing this or are we starting to see an uglier side of new technology, specifically is somebody leveraging artificial intelligence to help put together thousands of these transactions?"
"Clearly these bad actors are taking advantage of government transparency requirements and given the detail of this specific scam, I would not be surprised if the bad guys were leveraging AI to some extent," said Mark Lanterman, a longtime cyber security expert who leads Computer Forensic Services.
Lanterman is reminding people to slow down, contact the organization directly and never click on any links. One clue in Dornquast's case is the email wasn't associated with an account tied to the city.
"Whenever you receive a request for something of value, whether that's money, whether that's information, take a deep breath, read it again, and if you're still hesitant, pick up the phone," said Lanterman.
"I had no suspicion that it was fraudulent until I emailed several people I had been working within the city," said Dornquast.
The city says two other people were targeted, but they did not fall for the fake email either. It's since started removing people's names, phone numbers and emails from public documents. It can't remove addresses because that's public record.
The Mounds View Police Department is also aware and while it took reports, is not actively investigating due to the email's unknown origin and not enough resources.
Dornquast says he also submitted an inquiry to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"I would be shocked if Mounds View, Minnesota was the only place this was happening," said Dornquast.