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Money mules are people who, at someone else’s direction, receive and move money obtained from victims of fraud. Sometimes, money mules do not even realize they are involved in illegal activity and believe they are following an employer’s directions or participating in a legitimate business. These individuals unwittingly enable fraudsters to harm others. The Payments Innovation Alliance recently developed a video to help consumers take precautions to avoid unintentionally becoming a money mule. Check it out here: https://hubs.la/Q02Cj-v80

Big shoutout to my colleagues Sophia Ludwig and Dr. Jonas S. for working with me on this series. In this weeks edition, we like to talk about something that can happen to all of us or our kids. Often without any criminal intention in mind, acting on social media, not challenging certain contacts, interactions and requests. However, it is utterly important to challenge and ask yourself "why" is someone reaching out, requesting, offering money / profits etc. *** Today's issue: focusses on the fact that social media is now one of the preferred methods to recruit money mules! Fraudsters and other criminals recruit money mules – persons who receive money from a 3rd party and transfer it to another account or withdraw it as cash in their own name but on behalf of the criminal - on social media platforms. The usual approach: newcomers to a country, unemployed, students, and other citizens in economic hardship are attracted by lavish displays of luxury goods and the promise of a cut of laundered money. Criminals use the accounts of money mules to obfuscate the source of funds, hide transaction flows to avoid detection, and thwart investigations by law enforcement. However, money mules are responsible for the movements on their account and face severe consequences, including •blacklisting by banks and limited access to banking products, •lower credit rating and thereby limited access to credit and mortgages, and •prison time, for example up to 10 years in Germany and 14 years in the UK. #aml #socialmedia #moneylaundering #moneymule #crime

This is a really well written article from Pallavi P Kapale DipAML MICA on Money Mules. I especially like the part related to Transactional Behaviour, the overpayment of credit cards to then withdraw the over payment as clean money back is a very interesting behavior to look out for. Also the test payments, setting up the account for future use. Accounts need to have had some historic activity before they are used and these small test transactions are a good behaviour to look out for This is worth a read! #moneymule #financialcrime #transactionmonitoring

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💡 We all know the cost and pain associated with payment scams. Making NameCheck technology available outside of CommBank will strengthen the payments ecosystem to assist in preventing financial loss. Protecting payments has never been more important. You can read more via the link below, or DM me with any questions. Have a great week!

Ever heard of Funnel accounts or come across accounts that runs as a funnel for suspicious transactions. These methods are used to launder money or perpetrate unauthorized funds transfer that exploits financial institutions. Increasingly, #cybercriminals are strengthening their network by using funnel accounts to launder funds weaved throughout a host of withering crimes. We have heard in the past how criminally minded individuals are able to convince a large multitude of the #unbanked which equally falls under a category of people with a very low level of education, hence, they have a little or no understanding of the kind of crime their details are been used to perpetrate. Just as they use a network of money mules to open multiple sham accounts, they also use unsuspecting individuals details harvesting their #BVN, #NIN and other important information’s to open accounts across various digital platforms for the purpose we are about to dive into. These accounts have a range of characteristics and here are 4 of some of the ways to identify these accounts; 1.    Test Deposits/Withdrawals Yes, if your system is vigilant enough you will notice that the account will be tested before using it to run the major purpose. For example; A N1000 inflow will be used to test run the services on your banking app and then followed by a withdrawal. These process is often carried out about twice before they make their move. Once they have been able to confirm the viability of your platform then they go ahead to run the transactions. Once they are done, they leave the account for some time and also ensure to leave a balance they can use to test to be sure the account is still available when they are ready to make another run of such.   2. Deposits from shadow sources These are sources not directly linked to them, and the ensure that they do not make a deposit through that source more than once. A very good example is making a deposit via a random #POS agent into such account from multiple locations. These funds will be immediately taken out of the account as the deposit is running through.   3. Huge Volume, Low Balance Imagine an account with a total turnover of N200Million Naira in a month and has never had a N10,000 Naira balance that sleeps overnight in the account within that same month. That is a very clear indication of an account that needs to be flagged for an #EnhancedDueDiligence . Many of these accounts would receive millions in tranches and would immediately initiate outflows to multiple accounts with fictitious narrations.   4. High Volume of Chargebacks There are accounts that unsuspecting to the financial institution initiates multiple #chargebacks on you, particularly institutions that rely on third parties to settle such disputes. Chargebacks are time bound and before you try to settle many of these #chargeback disputes initiated against you, you could loose it to such accounts and they will get value for transactions already settled initially.

Lottery fraud occurs when criminals use fake messages and calls to convince a person that they have won a lottery or a prize draw. The victim is then informed that they will need to pay an advance “fee” in order to receive the winnings. Victims are commonly asked to pay these advance fees by purchasing gift cards and relaying codes to the fraudster. In some instances, victims have reported being asked for personal and financial information in order to obtain their “winnings”. Some victims reported providing their bank details thinking they would be sent a small payment to verify the account. In reality, criminals use these details to steal the victims money. #StaffordshireVictimGateway #SVG #restorativejustice #rj #victimsupport

Altered checks - Scam revealed in US Postal Services According to reports US postal employee had been involved in the altering of checks from the US Treasury and residents, doing a scam of almost 1.7 Million Dollars. 98 misappropriated checks were deposited using 8 bank accounts and even ATM's were used for withdrawal of money. The investigation revealed it still may be less amount. Awareness needs to be generated. Be careful about your money. Be updated. Charanjeet Singh Jagmeet Kaur #fraudprevention #frauddetection #fraudprotection #fraudawareness #fraudalert https://lnkd.in/dPdP9QR5

It used to be a big fraud type in India but with implementation of positive pay it has largely been addressed. In middle east it used to be big but then fraudsters found that business email compromise scam and social engineering (primarily OTP compromise) provide better returns so except some isolated incidents it has stopped. Positive pay made some progress in UAE but i think organizations are taking false comfort that cheque frauds have stopped, frauds can not stop on their own , certain categories just becomes less lucrative and those restart once other categories become difficult. SIM Swap is another fraud type, which continues to remain a big threat, specifically for SIM which are issued in the name of companies what is your take on cheque frauds and SIM Swap fraud? #cheque