Police are still investigating a breach in a Loveland theater company’s computer system that is linked to a rash of reports of credit- and debit-card fraud in northern Colorado.
Local, state and local law enforcement officers met Tuesday to exchange information related to their own independent investigations of a rise in fraud cases in northern Colorado since mid-October, said Loveland Police spokesman Mike Halloran.
They identified a variety of common locations where the cards were used legally prior to the fraudulent transactions. Investigators have been in contact with several area businesses where the cards were used, Halloran said.
In all, police say there an estimated 1,180 cases reported to agencies throughout the region. There may be other cases that have not yet been reported to authorities, Halloran said.
“We don’t know how many people who have been victimized and who haven’t called us,” he said.
Authorities say some of the cases could be traced to Loveland’s MetroLux 14.
Metropolitan Theatres, the Los Angeles parent company of MetroLux 14, reported last week that it had hired a forensic analysis team that found an outside organization had launched a cyber attack on the MetroLux data-transmission system.
MetroLux employees legally ran credit and debit cards through readers before the unidentified outside organization got financial information for use in fraudulent transactions, Halloran said.
A representative of the theater company told police measures were immediately put into place to remove the breach and their systems are now secure.
A forensic analysis report from the company will be released to police within the next 10 days to determine the source of the breach.
“We’re looking forward to getting that forensic report so we can move forward on this,” Halloran said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
