In my career in IT, we have encountered literally dozens of variants of this kind of scam. The ones that seem to be the most effective are the ones that directly target an individual, not just a blanket email. When the scammer takes the effort and the time to look at a companies organizational chart, and emails an individual about halfway down, they have a higher success rate and a higher return. Most companies of any significant size lose sight of audit when a request for funds comes in. And these middle level executives sometimes will authorize funds transfer Without verifying verbally with the originator. Like anything else in this world, it’s very easy to be a criminal if you have no morals.