Lot of Europeans would not know that Lithuania is part of the EU (and in Schengen too), lots of Europeans would not be able to point to it on a map.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are amongst the least known countries in the EU.
Hiding in Lithuania is silly because yes, it is part of the EU and no, it is not so large that you could disappear into the background.
What I'm surprised about is that the two companies paid their invoices without matching purchase orders, and that for amounts that large there was no extended verification process in place requiring at least two signatures and a destination account number check.
The majority of fraud like this goes the other way: small amounts just enough to be interesting and small enough to not go over the discretionary spending limits sent to 10's of thousands of companies.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are amongst the least known countries in the EU.
Hiding in Lithuania is silly because yes, it is part of the EU and no, it is not so large that you could disappear into the background.
What I'm surprised about is that the two companies paid their invoices without matching purchase orders, and that for amounts that large there was no extended verification process in place requiring at least two signatures and a destination account number check.
The majority of fraud like this goes the other way: small amounts just enough to be interesting and small enough to not go over the discretionary spending limits sent to 10's of thousands of companies.