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with fraud and scamming on the rise
criminal gangs are always on the lookout
for people willing to lend them their
bank accounts to receive and withdraw
that unlawful cash the people whose bank
accounts are being used by these
fraudsters are called money mules
but why would people let criminals use
their bank account when it could result
in paying the price for someone else's
crime more often than not this presents
a red flag for banks which can get you
blacklisted and done for money
laundering which can land you in jail
for up to 14 years i want to investigate
this new crime trend by speaking to the
police
the victims and also the recruiters
manipulating people online to launder
cash
i'm with banks and shanks two fraudsters
who don't want their crimes traced back
to them
so instead they recruit money mules
they're meeting up with one of them
who's just received money from their
latest bank fraud into his account
as payment for letting them use his bank
details or deets they're giving him a
cut and returning his square which is
road man for bank card how did you meet
banks and sharks he snatched it snapped
literally of course but since there i
found that there was easy little money
to do in business
i know you like nervous about the risks
involving all that is it isn't it right
the game goes
that's the deal you have to do
so how much do you just give my mom
two and a half bags
so what do you what do you think he does
with that money next guys can do
anything with it he wants to go out and
spend it all on design
banks shanks and their mule look like
brethren's but really they're fully
using him and could get my man
blacklisted by banks brewing his credit
rating and even worse he could get
arrested
do you ever tell the money meals the
risks beforehand to some people some
people sometimes i don't know i don't
care i'm gonna speak to a certain way so
you don't feel like you have a choice
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banks and shanks almost exclusively
recruit their mules through social media
oh you've got sarcasm
oh snap
ross
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wait how much is that you know
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but you know
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so
where exactly did all this cash come
from
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one can't even get into detail from
jesus i'm guessing it's something
illegal
yeah
so you made the post
um someone's replied
what's the next steps from that
is
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ultimately
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so it's just harder to trace
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what would you do if like you send it to
someone's account and then it already
gets locked like the fed's already on it
and it's just trapped
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so it's pure violence if they take your
money
well now you need to take this away from
me if i get to carry the waiver
these are young guys just teenagers
walking around with 15 000 pounds in a
book bag like it's nothing
they don't see the repercussions they
don't see the possible jail time they
just want to make money fast
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in 2020 there were almost 26 000
suspected money meal cases in the uk
involving 14 to 30 year olds sky news
has reported that people younger than 25
are six times more likely to fall victim
to criminals on social media than over
50s
i'm checking the apps to see just how
easy it is to get coerced into money
mulen i've just made a fake snapchat and
a fake instagram account and on my
instagram i've portrayed myself as
being into flashy clothes expensive
jewelry
liking partying and going out and i've
typed in in the explore page quick cash
and i followed every single page that's
come up and i started dming potential
recruiters asking them how do i get
involved basically i've done the same
for snapchat i've
typed in quick cash
make money
and one of them's even replied to me now
saying who's this
oh mate within minutes i get a list of
information the recruiter wants from me
this happened all within the space of 10
15 minutes
this guy obviously doesn't care about
whether
i'm going to get away with this so
i could potentially get 14 years
i'm just being used
but not all money meals are recruited on
social media
many get persuaded by friends and family
so you've been the money mule so do you
mind speaking about your experience and
how they approached you
i got approached by a
family member
a few times with someone that approached
them
i thought i got pressured by that family
member
when i
agreed to do it i said ah give me bank
details give me a card give me a pin
number obviously nowadays you would
never give your bank details to anyone
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with i was going to take a little bit
that was the sort of deal with it like
the money went into the account
and
whoever had my card for my two grands
worth of gold that's what he says on the
statement
like that yeah so obviously that money's
came out so quick yeah it's alerted the
bank
the bank's obviously put a block in it
so that person's took first half out but
the other half that was possibly mine
and
so what was the outcome of that when it
happened and froze my couch first of all
i had a little come through the pulse
and it was like a fit letter in it and
he said now you're all like four
thousand pounds in it and i said to him
well have you uh haven't called the
police in it and it says now we haven't
done an investigation so basically i've
said to them how did you know it wasn't
fraud
okay
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so at the time that they approached you
when you were younger did you know that
you could possibly get up to 14 years
for money laundering
14 years
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i think raphael was extremely lucky he
managed to get the 4k that he was asked
to launder completely wiped from his
account
and he was even given a 25 pound check
as an apology
but in the grand scheme of things i
don't believe it was worth it because
he was still blacklisted from that bank
for several years and his credit score
was severely affected and it kind of
highlights the way that money meals see
this cram
they see it as low risk
putting as far from the case
the national crime agency has set up a
special task force dedicated to fighting
this type of financial crime it's often
international gangs behind these schemes
trying to launder their illegal cash so
what we've got here is a criminal group
who are carrying out what we call
business email compromise they send
emails to a company making the company
think it's just a normal supplier saying
oh we've changed our bank account this
month so they're asking this company
to pay money into a slightly different
account the criminals need that account
to look absolutely normal so they want a
uk account there's no point having an
account in china or afghanistan that's
going to look dodgy they want it to be a
high street bank they want it to look
totally normal so to do that the
criminals need to recruit some money
mules so firstly they'll have a
recruiter a mule herder a picker whose
job will be to go out and find the mules
so they might use coercion they might
use force they might threaten young
people to do it they might use deception
so pretend it's actually something
completely legitimate
or they might just recruit people and be
completely upfront about what they're
doing and just say if you move 500
pounds you get to keep 50. so in this
case you've got a recruiter who's forced
one person to be involved so the money
is immediately going into their account
and to make it even harder for us to
track them down they're then using two
other mules to move the account and then
finally what we're seeing here is the
final individual is being asked to
transfer all the money through a money
service business which is a specialist
business involved in moving money abroad
and the criminals will pick out so
you've got a complex transaction web
that starts with the theft of money and
ends with some but not all of that money
going back into the hands of the
criminal and they are using a network of
mule herders and money mules to help
them avoid getting caught
make the money look clean and get that
money out of the country
and what are the said consequences of
money laundering so if you're a money
mule
you can get arrested you can get
prosecuted you can end up in prison but
i think the issue that we're really
worried about in terms of consequences
is if you agree to take part in money
laundering and the bank spots it and
they seize the money and they freeze the
money
you might quickly find that you owe a
nasty criminal group a lot of money and
they're not going to take no for an
answer
so we are concerned in particular about
young people who are told that this is
an easy way of making money you know you
just go into the bank move this no big
deal we'll leave a few quid in your
account and all of a sudden they owe
debt to a criminal group and that debt
is going to come with interest and
they're not going to be happy if you
don't pay we spend our time hearing
victim stories where you have people
losing their homes and losing their
livelihoods you know you've got all
sorts of cases around people committing
suicide because they've lost their life
savings in terms of money murdering i
think what we want people to understand
is that they're just a piece in the
chain and they might not see the whole
picture but what they're doing is
enabling violence to take place
the nca are focusing their efforts on
tracking down the gangs and recruiters
rather than the mules themselves who are
often tricked into it but that still
leaves young people who fall for these
schemes exposed to potential violence
from criminals not to mention
jeopardizing their futures
at the moment it's like new recruiters
can post what they want and get away
with it it seems that the social media
companies themselves could be doing a
lot more to validate its users and
regulate its content stopping the
recruiters being on the platform in the
first place
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you