It may sound outlandish, but many money mules are actually tricked into layering illicit funds. Whether it’s under the guise of a legitimate business relationship, a personal relationship (whether platonic or romantic), or some other means, mules are often employed without realizing what they are doing is a crime.
Below, we explore some of the most common money mule scams used to employ money mules. For financial institutions, this can help determine what personas to examine - despite them appearing legitimate at first glance.
1. Work-from-home job scams
Victims are tricked into working what they believe to be a legitimate job. Typically, the role is related to payment processing and requires the employee to accept and send transfers. While the money mule believes themselves to be working a legitimate job, they are actually just transferring criminal proceeds in a money laundering scheme.
Typically, these are remote jobs where the money mule can work from home. This appears to be a perk of the job, but in reality, it is an additional way for the criminal to remain anonymous. Job titles could include ‘payment processor,’ ‘financial manager,’ or even more broad roles like ‘administrative assistant.’
2. Romance Scam
An even more devious twist on the traditional romance scam; in this version, fraudsters leverage a romance fraud scam to lure the victim into money muling.
First, the criminal develops a relationship with the victim. They then convince the victim to transfer money for them, making up a fabricated story to justify this. They could claim to be an investor or simply convince the victim they need personal transfers done for them because they don’t have a working bank account.
In some cases, fraudsters will trick the victim into muling funds for them; in others, they’ll request access to the victim's personal bank accounts, later exploiting that access to launder funds.
3. Prize-winning scams
Criminals create a fake lottery or sweepstakes, telling an unsuspecting victim that they’ve won the grand prize.
Fraudsters then exploit the victim in one of two ways. They tell the victim they need to collect personal information in order to send money, and later use that information to take over their accounts.
Alternatively, they tell the victim that they require the fees and taxes to be paid prior to the prize being paid out (after the victim pays, the fraudster disappears and no prize is ever awarded).
