Missing funds linked to UVic data theft

The apparent theft of thousands of dollars from a woman's bank accountmight be linked to the theft of personal and banking information that was stolen from the University of Victoria last weekend, Saanich, B.C.,police believe.

The UVic theft included an unencrypted hard drivethat contained social insurance numbers and bank account details of about 11,700 current and former university employees.

Sgt. Dean Jantzen said the victim is a former university employee, but the theft was from an account not directly linked to the university's payroll.

But the timing of the crime increases the possibility that it was related to the weekend break-in and theft at the administrative services building.

"It appears that this fraud happened very early on in the investigation and this is, we believe, sometime on Monday, so this may only be the tip of the iceberg," Jantzen said. "We hope there's no more, but we suspect that there might be some other calls that we receive of a similar nature."

Jantzen said three more detectives who specialize in financial crimes have been assigned to the case whiletwo other detectives are investigating the break-in.

Police are once again urging anyone who was on the university's payroll between January 2010 and now to call their bank immediately so that passwords and account numbers can be changed.

Authorities are also advising people call credit bureaus so that their file can be red flagged for any suspicious activity.