On the purely criminal level, this cyber scam is an example of the impunity under which the criminals operate.

It's called Business Email Compromise (BEC). It's frighteningly simple and effective. It involves a scammer getting access to someone's account, often a tradesperson, then altering the account details of a real outgoing invoice.

The customer sees nothing wrong as the correspondence part is left unaltered. He/she goes ahead and pays but the money goes to the scammer's account, which has been opened with a false name. The money is then withdrawn from an ATM in a different country (in this case South Africa).

The police told the victims:

"Any further investigation is unlikely to result in a successful prosecution of the party responsible."

"The reason is Victoria Police has no jurisdiction in South Africa and Interpol will only investigate fraud matter in excess of $1,000,000 loss."

The end.