ORANGE — At Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting, Police Chief James Sullivan announced that a felony indictment has been secured in connection with a fraud scheme that siphoned approximately $338,000 from the town’s coffers. Sullivan explained that the indictment, which charges one individual with larceny, involves a suspect who has no ties to the town.
Until an extraditable warrant is in place, Sullivan stated that limited details—including the suspect’s identity—will be released as his department, the FBI, and the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office continue to investigate the fraud.
“I can’t get into too much on it right now. I’m waiting for a warrant for this person, an extraditable warrant, this person is more than halfway across the country,” Sullivan said. “Once I get the warrant, the extraditable warrant, my intention is to make that person very public here in the town of Orange.”
(Courtesy of Athol-Orange Community Television and The Athol Daily News)
The fraud was detected during the summer of 2023 by Town Administrator Matthew Fortier, who discovered that fraudulent invoices had led to unauthorized payments. Fortier later revealed that the scam might have originally exceeded $800,000, though some transactions were stopped by the bank.
Sullivan described the indicted suspect as a “money mule” — a minor operator within a broader international criminal network. He noted that while the FBI and the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office are examining the case on a global scale, most of the stolen money has already been transferred abroad, with a significant portion converted into bitcoin.
Addressing concerns about internal involvement, Sullivan dismissed rumors of local fraud or embezzlement, emphasizing that the suspect is an outsider and that no evidence points to any misconduct by town employees, according to The Athol Daily News.
Selectboard member Jane Peirce inquired about the possibility of recovering the funds, but Sullivan expressed skepticism. “We have a pretty good idea of where just about every dime went and most of it is not in this country,” he said. “Absolutely no money that we have found has come anywhere near back to Orange.”
Orange is not alone in facing such challenges; other communities in New England have also suffered significant losses due to sophisticated fraud schemes in recent years. In 2024, Arlington, MA, officials reported that international criminals posed as a vendor during a high school rebuild, defrauding the town of about $445,945—a scam uncovered when the actual vendor alerted authorities after not receiving the expected payments, the Boston Globe reported. Likewise, in 2021, officials in Peterborough, New Hampshire, announced the town had been defrauded of $2.3 million while operating on a $15.8 million budget that year. The scheme unfolded in two phases: first, fraudsters posed as school district staff using forged documents and emails to obtain a $1 million transfer; then, several weeks later, they pretended to be contractors working on a bridge project, New Hampshire Public Radio reported.
