Money Mules

The UK payments association has issued the following helpful information:

30 September 2008

Payment Advice - Helpful information from the UK payments association

‘Money mules’, or ‘money transfer agents’ as they are sometimes called, are people recruited by criminals to help transfer fraudulently-obtained money from UK banks accounts.

The funds that the criminals are looking to transfer are usually stolen as a result of online banking fraud scams such as phishing, whereby a criminal dupes someone into disclosing their online bank login details and passwords.

Most of the fraudsters carrying out this type of fraud are located abroad, so a money mule based in the UK is required to launder the money and send it overseas. Although some money mules are accomplices of the criminals and know that they are handling stolen money, the criminals also try to dupe innocent victims into laundering the funds on their behalf. They normally do this by pretending to offer legitimate jobs via newspapers or the internet, and often target vulnerable groups such as migrant workers and university students who may be tempted by the lure of an apparently easy way of making some extra cash.

After being recruited by the fraudsters, money mules receive funds into their accounts and are then asked to withdraw the money and send it on to a third party, minus a certain commission payment.

Even if the money mule has had nothing to do with the actual theft of funds from another person’s account, by allowing their bank account to be used to receive and transfer such funds, they will have acted illegally.

Following the advice in this guide can help you ensure that you do not unwittingly get involved in a scam of this nature.

How it happens

  1. Fraudsters contact prospective victims with ‘job vacancy’ adverts via spam emails, letters, newspaper job adverts, internet chat rooms or job search web sites. Jobs are usually advertised as a ‘financial manager’, ‘UK representative’, ‘shipping manager’ or ‘sales manager’ and suggest that no special knowledge or skill is required, other than having a UK bank account.
  2. The fraudsters convince the victim to come and work for their fake ‘company’. Some fraudsters even ask mules to sign official-looking contracts of employment.
  3. Once recruited, money mules will receive funds into their accounts. These funds will have been stolen by the fraudsters from another account that has been compromised.
  4. Mules are then asked to take these funds out of their account and to send them to someone else, minus a commission payment. Typically the mule is asked to transfer the funds overseas using a wire transfer service.

Part two - How to avoid being a victim