Money Mule is the name given to the trick where fraudsters try to implicate someone – without his knowledge – by using his bank account as an intermediary to transport stolen goods in order to cover their tracks. Anyone could fall for such a scam. The story we will present is real and shows how this fraud unfolds.
The Fraud
The owner of a tire company was selling a six-year-old Mercedes truck for twenty thousand euros. It didn’t take long for an interested party to appear. In May 2020, he received a call from someone who introduced himself as a butcher by trade and only asked if the vehicle could be converted into a refrigerator, and then they agreed to send the down payment. Within the next 48 hours there followed a sequence of strange bank movements and persistent telephone harassment from the prospective buyer, as well as his accomplices, which telephone harassment escalated into threats. When he returned from summer vacation, the truck salesman found their bank accounts blocked, even those in which he was a joint owner.
He then found that he was accused of being part of a multi-faceted criminal organization which used a combination of telephone and electronic fraud, with branches in every corner of the country operating with loot in excess of €300,000. Two years later and while the trial for this case is still pending, the owner of the tire company maintains that he is a victim of fraud. He points out that the perpetrators, unbeknownst to him, tried to turn it into a “money mule”, that is, to use his bank account as an intermediate station for the transfer of the stolen goods in order to cover their tracks. This story is instructive not only about the ingenuity of the perpetrators but also about how easily citizens can be fooled, but also about how out of nowhere anyone could be drawn into the vortex of a scam. The advance agreed upon to close the deal for the sale of the truck was 1,000 euros. The owner of the vehicle, however, saw that the amount of 2,900 euros was finally credited to his company account from a construction materials company located in another part of the same country, with which he had no previous contact. Immediately after transferring the money he was called by the scammer who was going to buy his truck and told him that the deposit was made through another company that owed him money and citing various reasons was asking to meet to get some of the money he owed back be credited.
The truck owner suspected something was wrong. He contacted the police in his area where the chief officer of the service told him that it is not clear what the offense is and advised him to return the amount to the sender. The next day he contacted the company on the other side of the country and they told him “We are fine and you don’t have to return them”. Later it would be proven by the Police investigation that this company was also a victim of the same fraud.
The cycle of deception
A few days later in the same month and after the owner of the tire company had already posted the ad for the sale of his truck, the owner of the construction materials located on the other side of the country received a phone call from someone unknown. He introduced himself as a pharmacist using the real details of a pharmacy owner in the same city as the construction materials company. He ordered materials worth 550 euros and asked to pay by bank transfer. He then sent her a fake payment receipt of 3550 euros via the Internet. He called the construction material company again, pretended that he had made a mistake in the transaction and asked for the difference to be returned to him, however, giving the IVAN of the owner of the tire company that sold the truck and who a few days earlier had posted the ad for sale on the Internet his truck.
The next day the scammer called her again and repeated the same cycle of deception, showing another fake receipt. But it didn’t stop there. tried to deceive his anger a third time by sending a new proof of payment. To give greater credibility, he created an email with a pharmacy mockup. Then, however, he was noticed and the anger appealed to the police. until then, however, the fraudster had managed to withdraw a total of 6200 euros.
Τhe foundation of fraud
The EU member state where these frauds took place is Greece. The Greek police authorities managed to relate similar complaints throughout the country, indicating that many citizens had been approached or deceived by members of this criminal organization. the main structure of the fraud was in the fact that the perpetrators made sure that the alleged transaction was made by a different bank in relation to that of the victim, in order to take advantage of the “Value Day” procedure, based on which the amount is not credited directly, but usually to interval of two business days.
As long as the two-day period lasted, they sent their victims, usually through the Viber application, fake money deposit slips. In these they noted how much more than what was agreed and then they demanded the return of the difference, managing to mislead many businessmen and citizens.
In order to avoid this trap, one should not rush past the phone pressure they may receive and wait for at least three business days to pass until they see that no amount has been credited to their account.
Members of the criminal organization called citizens who had posted ads on sales websites. They also pretended to be prospective buyers and managed to extract e-banking access codes, bank card numbers and one-use confirmation codes. In order to bend the suspicion of the victims, they sent them fraudulent SMS, in which a certain bank appeared as the sender and forced them to share their passwords. The profits of the specific criminal organization amounted to over 1.5 million euros.
The “Money Mules”
One of the perpetrators undertook the telephone deception and capture of the codes, an accomplice transferred the money to a third member who had made his bank account available for channeling the loot, and another person proceeded to withdraw the money from an ATM and deliver it to someone superior. A necessary link in the chain of their fraud were middlemen, who acted as money mules – money transfer mules – for a fee that started from 500 euros and could reach as much as 2,000 euros, making their bank accounts available for the immediate transfer of the stolen goods.
After each withdrawal, the beneficiaries of these accounts declared the loss or theft of their card in order not to arouse suspicion. At least 192 business account holders were identified by the police in this scam. In case it was not possible to immediately recruit a new bank account holder, they used the accounts of other people they had just defrauded for the transfers.
The leaders of this circuit were also marked. With the money they took, they bought expensive cars, electronic devices or renovated their houses. Some of the key members of this group were looking to buy apartments or invested large sums in health care businesses. a part of their income also covered their operating costs which due to the constant need to buy new “business” phone numbers and get a new airtime renewal package was not negligible.
