INVERNESS, Fla. – Investigators are working to uncover a cyber fraud that scammed more than $800,000 from the Citrus County School Board.

According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, the scheme resulted in fraudulent transfers totaling $846,864.86.

School officials said they became aware of issues when they were alerted by a vendor that a payment was not received.

Officials were able to confirm the payment had been made, but to a fraudulent party that had emulated the vendor's email and provided a falsified account number.

Authorities say the suspect is operating outside of Florida and has no known ties to the school board.

This type of cyber fraud, commonly known as "business email compromise" (BEC), occurs when suspects gain unauthorized access to email communications and impersonate legitimate entities to divert funds.

"The moment we discovered this was a fraudulent transaction, we immediately contacted our partners at the Citrus County Sheriff's Office," said Dr. Scott Hebert, Superintendent of Schools. "Their swift response, along with the expertise of the United States Secret Service, was instrumental in recovering the majority of the stolen funds."

The Secret Service was able to ID and freeze $779,604 in two separate bank accounts outside of Florida. These funds were later recovered and efforts are ongoing to locate the remaining $67,260.

The case remains under active investigation by the sheriff’s office and U.S. Secret Service.

"As with any criminal case, my priority is to the victims in the case, whether that is a person, business, or government agency,” said Sheriff David Vincent. “This case could have been a significant financial loss to our local school district; our priority was locating the funds and securing them.”