Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters. They are being recruited as unwitting "money mules" who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime. The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks. It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable. Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules. "It's a very serious problem," warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action. "Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves."

How it works

The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites. Then they offer jobs as "money transfer agents", "payment processing agents" or "administration assistants" for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week. It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person's own bank account, making them the fraudster's money mule. Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out. "It just makes you feel a bit sick," she complains, "I feel like I've got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don't want it to happen again." The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.....Read more here