I don't understand how this scam was realised then. They must've managed to get access to the applicants true email address somehow?
And it's not hard to get someone's real email once you have a few clues. Such as their profile image/avatar... just hit tineye.com or Google Image Search, and find out the sources, look at profile info on LinkedIn or Facebook, look at other web links... find almost anything (CV, blog, custom domain, Twitter, HN profiles) and you'll get to the email address very quickly.
The time between start and end of that is minutes.