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Scams in which fraudsters impersonate company presidents and other senior executives and issue fake business instructions by email are rapidly increasing, according to police, with some firms suffering losses exceeding ?100 million ($635,000) as a result.

The scheme targets employees such as accounting staff, and small and midsize companies are particularly vulnerable because of the relative closeness between executives and workers. The National Police Agency has urged caution through the Central Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry and other groups.

According to the NPA, these emails typically arrive under the name of a company president or chairman, and are often sent to accounting staff. The messages typically claim to concern a “new business partner” or “project-related matters,” and instruct recipients to set up a chat group for further communication.

Between mid-December and Jan. 15, police nationwide received 39 reports of such scams, with 16 cases resulting in actual financial losses. The total damages amounted to about ?540 million, the agency said.

In one case on Dec. 25, an employee of a materials supplier in the Kanto region received a message sent to their company email address from someone posing as the company president.

The employee created a Line chat group and sent the QR code to the designated recipient, and after exchanging messages via the chat, transferred about ?30 million to a bank account as a purported transaction payment. The fraud was discovered only after the employee later checked with the actual president.

The NPA believes fraudsters are exploiting the names and email addresses of company representatives published on corporate websites. Because the schemes are disguised as legitimate business payments, losses have tended to be large.

Companies and their employees should “review internal rules for online transfers and business instructions, and verify suspicious orders directly with (their) company president,” the agency urged.