Students urged to remain alert following rise in money muling cases

Upwards of 19,000 ‘muling’ reports were filed to the Cifas National Fraud Database between January and June this year. That’s over 2,000 more than the total submitted in the same period last year.

Cifas members and law enforcement agencies expect that young people, particularly students, will remain an attractive target for ‘herders’ who use social media and online platforms with the lure of making ‘quick cash’. Cifas’ intelligence suggests the herders are using new tactics to potentially recruit young people. One of the tactics they’re using is to create and post fake adverts online disguised as job opportunities. They’re then asking students to provide bank details such that funds can be transferred between accounts.

Stephen Dalton, director of intelligence at Cifas, said: “Herders will often establish fake profiles to infiltrate social media groups, target victims and depict a luxury lifestyle online to try and sell the idea that ‘muling’ is low-risk and offers high reward.”

Dalton continued: “However, it’s really money laundering and plays a significant role in funding wider organised crime such as drug dealing, terrorism and human trafficking. In truth, ‘muling’ has never been a harmless ‘side hustle’ or an ‘easy way’ in which to make money and should not be a ‘normalised’ crime.”

‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign

Cifas has teamed up with UK Finance to launch the ‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign, duly providing information and support about money muling.

Sarah Sinden, spokesperson for the ‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign, noted: “Criminals try to entice students with offers of quick cash with no strings attached, so it’s important to never engage with fake adverts or click on links to job offers that seem too good to be true.”

Sinden added: “Exploiting young people in this way is dreadful. The criminals are coercing them into breaking the law and that can harm their future. Being a money mule can have long-term consequences for students, like losing their place at university, finding it difficult to access credit or loans and having their bank account closed.”

In conclusion, Sinden stated: “Our ‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign aims to teach young people and students about the dangers posed by this type of criminal activity and how to keep their bank accounts safe.”

Best Practice advice

Security professionals operating in the education sector can pass on the following Best Practice advice to students studying within universities and collages:

*Don’t give your bank account details to anyone unless you know and trust them.

*Be wary of job offers where all interactions and transactions will be done online

*Be cautious of unsolicited offers of easy money. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

*Research any company that makes you a job offer and make sure their contact details are genuine

*Be wary of job offers from overseas. It will make it harder for you to find out if they are legitimate

*Be wary of job ads that are written in poor English with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes

Cifas’ new APP Victim Check facility provides banks with victim data to identify high-risk payments (ie possible ‘muling’ activity) that need to be paused and investigated, in turn helping to reduce fraud and protect customers from further losses.

Additionally, its Beneficiary Checks solution provides fraud teams with a secure communication channel to connect and verify concerns around possible fraudulent payment transactions such as ‘muling’, Authorised Push Payment fraud or first party fraud.

*Further information is available online at www.cifas.org.uk