The Trumbull County Sheriff's office is working with the FBI to figure out how more than $100,000 ended up in a fraudulent bank account. 

It was tax money that was supposed to be headed for Bazetta Township, but never got there.

The issue was first brought to the Trumbull County Sheriff's Office after the fiscal officer for Bazetta Township didn't receive the tax money it was supposed to receive from the Trumbull County Auditor's office.

According to the police report that fiscal officer filed with the sheriff's office--she found emails that dated back to August 9 from an unknown sender instructing an employee at the County Auditor Office that the bank account number changed, before providing an account number to a fraudulent bank account.

"Local police agencies deal with this sort of fraud all the time, but not at this level. This is something bigger.", said Tony Villanueva, major at the Trumbull County Auditor's Office.

Villanueva says these hackers were able to intercept more than $100,000 dollars, some of which they were able to recoup--with the help of the auditor's office, adding that no one within the county is to blame.

"This is not something that's local. These are not local people. These are people from different states, different countries.", said Villanueva.

Making them very hard to track, however they used a green dot bank account--which has been a common denominator in previous investigations.

21 News reached out to Trumbull County Auditor Martha Yoder, who sent us this response.

"On September 3, 2024 my office became aware of irregularities with emails received by my office.  The matter is now under investigation by law enforcement, and I cannot comment further due to the pending investigation."