After a Mesa church lost its mortgage payoff to wire fraud, ‘God worked a miracle’

When Pastor Alan Thompson challenged the congregation at Brown Road Baptist Church in Mesa to pay off the mortgage for their church building, he never expected the roller coaster that would follow.

In less than a year-and-a-half, the congregation raised $313,000 to pay off the church’s mortgage, said Thompson, the senior pastor. But when the time came to fully pay off the debt and wire the final payment of $76,000 to the loan office, the money never reached its intended destination.

The church was a victim of wire fraud — specifically an email account takeover, said Detective Kent Green, the Mesa Police Department detective assigned to the case.

At some point during the church’s communications with the actual loan officer, a scammer gained email access — whether on the church or the loan office side —  and sent fraudulent wire instructions, Green said.

The church contacted law enforcement and learned that it was unlikely they would see the money again. They contacted the involved financial institutions and discovered there was no insurance that could help, Thompson said.

Ultimately, it was their report to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center that would prove key to the case.

“This is not something most Baptist preachers know how to handle,” Thompson said.

When Thompson told his congregation about the crime, there were plenty of tears.

“They gave sacrificially…” he said. “They were just so upset that our dreams went up in smoke.”

In November 2024, Thompson had challenged the church to pay off the facility in three years. The congregation had moved into its current building 10 years ago after outgrowing a previous facility. He asked for 100 people to join him in giving $1,000 per year above their tithe to pay off the remaining $313,000 owed on the mortgage. By the spring of 2026, they had the money they needed.

Until it disappeared.

“I’ve seen these hundreds of times with individuals and businesses,” Detective Green said. “But the issue is a lot of people don’t know that while calling the police is the right thing, before that, when it comes to wires and online scams, IC3.gov (the Internet Crime Complaint Center) is the number one place to report it.” 

And because the church reported the fraud there, Green was ultimately able to get their money back.

“This is a federal website that has actual federal analysts on the other end…” Green said. “And the quicker the report is made, the better the chance that these funds can be intercepted. The analysts can call and contact the bank to stop the wire.”

It doesn’t always work out that way, but this time, it did.

“I’ve done countless number of these,” Green said. “I can’t recall ever getting the money back except this case.”

Several months later, Green met Thompson at the bank with a check. The church immediately overnighted the remaining mortgage funds to the proper location, successfully paying off the mortgage.

“God worked a miracle,” Thompson said.

On August 16, Brown Road Baptist will celebrate the paid-off mortgage with a potluck and note-burning ceremony. Green plans to attend.

“It’s all God,” Thompson said. “He provided the funds, and He got them back for us.”

5 tips from Detective Green to help your church avoid financial scams:

Slow down and pay attention. Green says to watch for changing instructions, language or other details, especially pertaining to financial transactions. These are red flags. Thompson said that when they re-evaluated the emails sent by the scammer, they noticed an incorrect email address. Green said the phone number in the loan officer’s signature was off by one digit.

Involve other people. “When (scammers) implement themselves into communication, they’ll isolate the sender of the financial transaction, and they’ll create a hurry to do this now,” Green says. Instead, get a second or third pair of eyes on the process. Scammers may also try to force a transaction closer to the weekend, to buy time and increase the likelihood that the actual loan officer is not working.

Don’t click links or respond to phone calls from unknown numbers. Whether in text messages, on social media or in your personal or work email, avoid clicking links, Green says. Clicking malicious or phishing links can ultimately send you “down the path of allowing remote access to your device or getting hacked in the end,” he adds.

If you are a victim of fraud or a scam, report it immediately at ic3.gov. Change your passwords and set up two-factor authentication.

For more resources about preventing scams, Green recommends checking out idtheftcenter.org and operationshamrock.org.