INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A scammer poached the 2016 W-2 forms of every Scotty’s Brewhouse employee – all 4,000 – after posing as the restaurant chain’s CEO through email.

Scotty’s Brewhouse of Fort Wayne

Scotty’s Brewhouse Director of Human Resources Christopher Martin told WISH-TV in Indianapolis that his payroll account’s manager, Emily Bledsoe, received an email from someone who claimed to be Scott Wise, the company’s CEO. The person requested that Bledsoe send all 4,000 employee’s 2016 W-2 forms in a PDF format.

After discovering that Wise did not send the email, Martin told WISH-TV that he contacted the Internal Revenue Service about the breach.

Martin told WISH-TV that he plans on contacting all employees affected to discuss what they can do to protect themselves from unauthorized use of their personal information.

No suspect information has been released at this time.

CEO of Scotty’s, Scott Wise released a statement about the scam:

Unfortunately, Scotty’s was the target of and fell victim to scammers, as so many other companies have. Scotty’s employees and customers are of tremendous importance to the company and Scotty’s regrets any inconvenience to its employees that may result from this scamming incident. Scotty’s will continue to work with federal and local law enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service and credit bureaus to bring the responsible party or parties to justice.”

Scotty’s Brewhouse operates 14 locations in Indiana including Fort Wayne, along with restaurants in Illinois, Ohio and Florida. A manager at the Fort Wayne location at 6282 W. Jefferson Blvd. refused to comment to NewsChannel 15.