East Londoners at greatest risk of falling for money laundering scam

Criminals are using fake recruitment scams to target job seekers and students in East London, and trick them into using their bank accounts for money laundering activity.

The banking industry is advising consumers everywhere to be on their guard as new research from Financial Fraud Action UK, the name under which banks co-ordinate their fraud prevention activity, shows that consumers are vulnerable.

It says people are ‘alarmingly unaware’ of the fake job recruitment scams criminals are increasingly using to dupe people into assisting them in money laundering activity.  Those recruited become ‘money mules’. Industry data shows that nearly half of all mule accounts identified in Greater London were located in East London and 70% of those were based in Newham.

The criminals behind this type of scam are online banking fraudsters. They recruit innocent people to transfer money overseas that has been stolen, typically via phishing scams, from the online bank accounts of UK customers.

Most of these fraudsters are located overseas and because cross border transfers can’t be made from UK online bank accounts, a mule is required to receive the stolen money into their account, then send it overseas using a wire transfer service, keeping some for themselves.

Criminals tend to recruit their money mules by pretending to offer legitimate jobs via emails, often targeting vulnerable groups such as migrant workers and students, who may be attracted by the lure of a seemingly easy way to make extra cash.

To highlight this growing problem, Financial Fraud Action UK and the National Fraud Authority (NFA) are launching a joint awareness campaign, focused on the London borough of Newham as 93% of residents do not know what a money mule is, despite the fact that nearly a quarter of residents have either been targeted to be a mule, or know someone else who has. Among those actually approached, men are more likely than women to be targeted to become a mule, 60% versus 40%, as are those aged 18 to 34 years compared to people aged 55 plus, 54% versus 15%.

A worrying 27% of people who have been approached to become a money mule did not know that becoming a money mule was illegal and that  it carries a prison sentence of up to ten years. Email is the criminal’s favourite method of communication for this scam with 62% of approaches made this way.

'It is concerning that awareness of this scam is extremely low in an area where nearly a quarter of residents have been approached for mule recruitment. The survey also clearly demonstrates that consumers are not reacting seriously enough to the potential warning signs such as job offers that offer minimum work and maximum reward,’ said Katy Worobec, head of fraud control, Financial Fraud Action.

‘Whilst criminals are currently focusing on East Londoners, this problem is a national one and nobody can afford to be complacent. We hope this campaign raises widespread awareness so that consumers are able to protect themselves from becoming a victim of this serious crime which can carry a prison sentence of up to ten years,’ she added.

Advice to consumers to help minimise their chances of being a victim includes to be very cautious of unsolicited job offers or opportunities to make easy money, especially of job offers from people or companies overseas as it will be harder for you to find out if they really are legitimate.

It says to try to verify any company which makes a job offer and check their contact details such as address, phone number, email address and website are correct and whether they are registered in the UK. Also to be suspicious of job adverts that are written in poor English, with grammatical and spelling mistakes and to never give your bank details to anyone unless you know and trust them.