Trinity College Dublin trying to recover €1m lost to email fraud

Trinity College Dublin is still trying to recover almost €1m lost to a computer fraud at its fundraising wing last year.

The university was left on the hook for amounts obtained by scammers from Trinity Foundation donors. It is believed they had received a fraudulent email, purporting to be from the foundation, directing them to send donations to alternative bank accounts. While the amount involved was not confirmed when the scam emerged last year, some details are set out in TCD’s financial statement for the year to September 30, 2017.

In a governance and financial control statement, TCD provost Patrick Prendergast and chief financial officer Ian Matthews said the total cost was €974,781.