Money mule

Short description: Person who transfers illegally acquired money

A money mule, sometimes called a "smurfer",[1] is a person who transfers money acquired illegally, such as by theft or fraud. Money mules transfer funds in person, through a courier service, or electronically, on behalf of others. Typically, the mule is paid for services with a small part of the money transferred. Money mules are often recruited on-line under the guise of legitimate employment, not aware that the money they are transferring is the product of crime. Similar techniques are used to transfer merchandise illegally.

## Contents

* 1 Details
* 2 Penalties
* 3 Cases
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading

## Details

Commonly, mules are recruited with job advertisements for "payment processing agents", "money transfer agents", "local processors", and other similar titles; the real benefit to the criminals is not the work carried out by the mule, but that the criminals are distanced from the risky, visible transfer. Some money mules are recruited by an attractive member of the opposite sex. After deducting a relatively small payment for themselves, candidates are asked to accept funds and to forward them to a third party, via remote work. Legitimate companies use escrow services for this kind of work.[2] Mules recruited online are typically used to transfer the proceeds from online fraud, such as phishing scams, malware scams or scams[3] that operate around auction sites like eBay.

After money or merchandise has been stolen, the criminal employs a mule to transfer the money or goods, hiding the criminal's true identity and location from the victim of the crime and the authorities.[4] By using instant payment mechanisms such as Western Union, the mule allows the thief to transform a reversible and traceable transaction into an irreversible and untraceable one.[5]

If an innocent third party's bank details have been compromised, they can be used as a mule without their knowledge, something sometimes called "Cuckoo smurfing".[1]

Criminals trading in stolen or illegally acquired goods use similar tactics to recruit mules who receive packages and forward them to mail drops not traceable to the criminal.[6]

Bitcoin ATMs were reported by Brian Krebs in 2016 to be rising in popularity for money muling.[7]

## Penalties

Money mules are complicit and risk criminal prosecution[8] and long jail sentences.

## Cases

In 2010, The FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force, composed of Federal, State, and Local law enforcement, charged more than 37 defendants involved in a highly organized money mule scheme, facilitated by the Zeus Financial Trojan. This group of money mules opened several bank accounts, using both real and fake identification, to receive stolen funds from compromised bank accounts, withdraw the stolen money, then wire the stolen funds overseas. These money mules facilitated the theft of over $3 million from victim bank accounts.[9]

## See also

* Advance-fee scam
* Fence
* Money laundering
* Mule (smuggling)
* Parcel mule scam
* Strawperson

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cooper, Luke (3 August 2007). "This Is The Unusual Money Laundering Method Of 'Cuckoo Smurfing'". Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/08/03/this-is-the-unusual-money-laundering-method-of-cuckoo-smurfing_a_23062608/. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
2. ↑ "Fake Job Offers". 21 May 2024. https://www.thatsnonsense.com/?location=fake_job.
3. ↑ Tehrani, Rich (June 23, 2016). "FBI: Beware New Email Scam". https://www.apextechservices.com/topics/articles/422430-fbi-beware-new-email-scam.htm.
4. ↑ "banksafeonline.org - Bank Safe Online". http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/moneymule_explained.html. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
5. ↑ "Is everything we know about password-stealing wrong?". http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/161829/EverythingWeKnow.pdf. Retrieved 2015-03-14.
6. ↑ "ThatsNonsense.com - Reshipping Scams". http://www.thatsnonsense.com/index.php?location=reshipping_scams. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
7. ↑ Brian Krebs (September 29, 2016), "'Money Mule' Gangs Turn to Bitcoin ATMs", Krebs on Security, https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/money-mule-gangs-turn-to-bitcoin-atms/
8. ↑ "Lloyds TSB - Money Mule". http://www.lloydstsb.com/security/money_mules.asp. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
9. ↑ "Manhattan U.S. Attorney Charges 37 Defendants". https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/2010/nyfo093010.htm. Retrieved 2017-02-24.

## Further reading

* Leukfeldt, Rutger; Jansen, Jurjen (2015). "Criminal Cyber Networks and Money Mules". International Journal of Cyber Criminology 9 (2). http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/Leukfeldt&Jansen2015vol9issue2.pdf. Retrieved 2017-02-24.

* v
* t
* e

Types of fraud

Business-related|

* Billing
* Cramming
* Disability
* Drug / Pharmaceutical
* Email
* Employment
* Fixing
* Impersonation
* Intellectual property
* Internet
* Job
* Long firm
* Odometer
* Phone
* Quackery / Health care
* Racketeering
* Return
* Tech support
* Slamming
* Telemarketing
* Wine

Family-related|

* Marriage
* Paternity

Financial-related|

* Advance-fee
* Lottery scam
* Bank
* Bankruptcy
* Chargeback
* Cheque
* Credit card
* Forex
* Insurance
* Lottery
* Mortgage
* Securities
* Shill bidding
* Tax

Government-related|

* Benefit
* Electoral
* Medicare
* Visa
* Welfare

Other types|

* Affinity
* Charity
* Confidence trick
* Counterfeiting
* Faked death
* Forgery
* Hoax
* Impersonation
* Mail and wire
* honest services
* Romance
* Bride
* Scientific
* Spyware
* Vomit
* White-collar crime

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Scams and confidence tricks

Terminology|

* Confidence trick
* Error account
* Shill
* Shyster
* Sucker list

Notable
scams and
confidence tricks|

* Advance-fee scam
* Art student scam
* Badger game
* Bait-and-switch
* Black money scam
* Blessing scam
* Bogus escrow
* Boiler room
* Bride scam
* Bullet-planting scheme
* Charity fraud
* Clip joint
* Coin-matching game
* Coin rolling scams
* Drop swindle
* Embarrassing cheque
* Employment scams
* Extraterrestrial real estate
* Fiddle game
* Fine print
* Foreclosure rescue scheme
* Foreign exchange fraud
* Fortune telling fraud
* Gem scam
* Get-rich-quick scheme
* Green goods scam
* Hustling
* Intellectual property scams
* Kansas City Shuffle
* Locksmith scam
* Long firm
* Miracle cars scam
* Mock auction
* Moving scam
* Patent safe
* Pig in a poke
* Pigeon drop
* Pork barrel
* Pump and dump
* Reloading scam
* Return scam
* Rent-a-car scam
* Salting
* Shell game
* Sick baby hoax
* SIM swap scam
* Slavery reparations scam
* Spanish Prisoner
* Strip search phone call scam
* Swampland in Florida
* Technical support scam
* Telemarketing fraud
* Thai tailor scam
* Thai zig zag scam
* Three-card Monte
* Trojan horse
* White van speaker scam
* Work-at-home scheme

Internet scams
and
countermeasures|

* Avalanche
* Carding
* Catfishing
* Click fraud
* Clickjacking
* Cramming
* Cybercrime
* CyberThrill
* DarkMarket
* Domain name scams
* Email authentication
* Email fraud
* Internet vigilantism
* Lottery scam
* PayPai
* Phishing
* Referer spoofing
* Ripoff Report
* Rock Phish
* Romance scam
* Russian Business Network
* SaferNet
* Scam baiting
* ShadowCrew
* Spoofed URL
* Spoofing attack
* Stock Generation
* Voice phishing
* Website reputation ratings
* Whitemail

Pyramid and
Ponzi schemes|

* Aman Futures Group
* Bernard Cornfeld
* Caritas
* Dona Branca
* Ezubao
* Foundation for New Era Philanthropy
* Franchise fraud
* High-yield investment program (HYIP)
* Investors Overseas Service
* Kapa investment scam
* Earl Jones (investment advisor)
* Kubus scheme
* Madoff investment scandal
* Make Money Fast
* Matrix scheme
* MMM
* Petters Group Worldwide
* Pyramid schemes in Albania
* Reed Slatkin
* Saradha financial scandal
* Secret Sister
* Scott W. Rothstein
* Stanford Financial Group
* Welsh Thrasher faith scam

Lists|

* Con artists
* Confidence tricks
* Criminal enterprises, gangs and syndicates
* Email scams
* Impostors
* In the media
* Film and television
* Literature
* Ponzi schemes

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money mule. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Finance:Money_mule&oldid=4112904"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template