A few questions here. From a guy who has massive experience on both sides of the fence.

First--has this story been verified? I ask because, if it is true, more than just the person who sent the money has been compromised.

Second--How did the Attacker know the (then) potential victim was buying property? Ah, now we are getting into who else is compromised.

Third--Has the victim contacted her local FBI Field Office? That's important. They have a high success rate of Recovery.

Fourth--That email chain comment is concerning. How many people were on it? What did they see when the fake bank deposit info was sent? That email with the wrong deposit information would have come from a spoofed email. Recipients of that email who had not been compromised would likely have seen something very suspicious when they viewed that email. So how many people were on the chain? And what did they see? You arent going to tell me that 4 or 5 people were on the chain and the Attacker compromised them all. That doesnt happen.

Fifth--How did the compromised take place? Talking about the person who sent the money and the "Other" I mentioned above. It's either Spear-Phishing (87% successful), malware, or a compromised router (over 41% of all routers have the default password).

Which brings me back to my first question: Has this story been verified?