The Legal Consequences Of Acting As A Money Mule

One of the most terrifying consequences of being scammed online is not only that you may lose your money – it’s also that you may unknowingly become involved in criminal activity. Every year, thousands of people are duped into becoming money mules for criminal organizations, with serious implications.

Understanding how money mule scams work and learning to spot the tell-tale signs of these scams can go a long way to protect you and your loved ones from falling for them. Let’s take a look at what it means to be a money mule, what the consequences of being a money mule are, and how to detect these malicious scams.

What Is A Money Mule?

A money mule is essentially a person who moves illegally acquired funds for someone else. Criminals who acquire money illegally need to put some distance between themselves and the source of the money to ensure that their crimes are not traceable by law enforcement agencies. Using a money mule helps them to confuse the paper trail and avoid being caught.

Money mules also help criminal organizations to ‘clean’ (or ‘launder’) the money they make through criminal activities. Through a series of transfers involving a money mule, criminals can disguise the original illegal source of the funds, receiving the funds back into their accounts from an apparently legal source. This is also referred to as ‘money laundering’.

While some money mules are aware that they are assisting criminals, many money mules are recruited online through money mule scams and have no idea that what they are doing is illegal.

What Are The Signs Of A Money Mule Scam?

The most common money mule scams are disguised as job opportunities or online romances.

Job opportunities

These money mule scams typically involve fake ‘work from home’ job opportunities. You will be contacted unsolicited by a person posing as a recruiter or an employer who offers you a well-paying job that requires minimum effort. The email address used to contact you will usually use a web-based service (such as Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook or Hotmail) rather than an organizational domain.

The job will require you to open a bank account in your name in which you will receive and transfer money. You may also be instructed to form a company and open a bank account in the company’s name. Your employer will usually tell you that you can keep a portion of the money you receive. Your role will have very few specific duties – except to ‘process’ funds, usually by wire transfer. The job will also involve no in-person interactions – all communication is exclusively online, and the employer may even be based in another country.

Online romances

You may be asked by a person you have become romantically involved with online, but whom you have never met in person, to receive money on their behalf and transfer these funds to another person who you do not know. Usually, you will be requested to move the funds by wire transfer. Romance scams are one of the most common forms of online scams, so you should generally be very cautious when looking for love online.

What Legal Consequences Could You Face If You Act As A Money Mule?

There are a range of both legal and non-legal consequences you will face if you are caught acting as a money mule, all of which will significantly impact your life.

Criminal liability

Depending on the specific circumstances of your involvement, you could become the subject of a federal investigation and be charged for committing wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and/or bank fraud. If you are found guilty of these crimes, you could be given a lengthy prison sentence. Much will depend on the extent of your knowledge of the scheme you were involved in, and whether a reasonable person in your position would have fallen for the scheme. Those who become money mules unwittingly but then continue to provide their services for financial gain after realizing what they have become involved in are more likely to be found guilty of a crime.

Civil liability

In some cases, money mules also face civil liability for their involvement in money laundering. If you are sued by the ultimate victims of the criminal organization you were assisting, you may be ordered to personally compensate them for their financial loss.

Other personal consequences

Acting as a money mule also has a range of other consequences. First, your bank accounts will be frozen while a criminal investigation is underway, meaning you will have no access to your funds. This could cause you significant financial hardship. Your credit score will also be severely affected, and your personal information will still be in the hands of criminals, who may later use it for other nefarious purposes (such as committing identity theft).

How Can You Protect Yourself From Falling For A Money Mule Scam?

The best way to protect yourself is to be vigilant in your activities online. Criminals prey on vulnerable people who are desperate to make money quickly (or who are desperate for companionship, in the case of romance scams), so if you fall into this category you need to be extra careful. Don’t ever give your personal information or bank details to people you meet online, and remember the golden rule: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Keep in mind that a money mule scam always begins with a scammer contacting you, and not the other way around, so you should be especially cautious if someone reaches out to you online and you have never met them in real life. Look out for odd grammatical structure, poorly written sentences, misspellings, and typos in communications that you receive from potential employers or romantic partners.

If you have been contacted by a prospective employer or a recruiter and you are worried that you are being recruited to a money mule scam, do some research on the company online. You should also search the name of the person who contacted you, and the subject line of the email, to see if there are any reports online exposing them as a scammer. If the role is titled ‘payment processing agent’ or ‘money transfer agent’, you should be extra careful. You can also try searching the Better Business Bureau to see if the company is listed on their website.

What Should You Do If You Suspect You’ve Fallen For A Money Mule Scam?

If you suspect that you have been contacted by a money mule scammer or that you have been tricked into working as a money mule, you should immediately cease contact with the suspect organization and contact your bank or any other financial institution you used to perform the transactions. You should consider changing bank accounts. You should also report the matter to law enforcement, and if applicable, get support from the Elder Fraud Hotline.

Keep Yourself Safe Online With Anti Fraud News

If you keep yourself informed of the latest online scams through Anti Fraud News’s blog posts and anti-fraud resource material, you will be in a much better position to protect yourself from online scammers and fraudsters. By sharing what you learn with friends and loved ones, you can also help to promote online safety in your community.