Published:
February 09 2010, 01:35 PM
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by
Rossano Ferraris
Cybercrime includes many things among which we enumerate the so-called “mule recruiting” issue. “Mule recruiting” is the process of recruiting “money mules,” who are people that transfer money and reship high value goods that have been fraudulently obtained in one country, usually via the internet, to another country.
A "money mule" or "money transfer agent" is required to launder the funds obtained as a result of phishing and trojan scams. After being recruited by the fraudsters, money mules receive funds into their accounts and they then withdraw the money and send it overseas using a wire transfer service, minus a certain commission payment.
Money mules are recruited by a variety of methods, including spam emails, adverts on genuine recruitment web sites, approaches to people with their CVs available online, instant messaging and adverts in newspapers. Generally the jobs posted require the victim to work at home.
We have witnessed many spam emails in the course of the last several months where fraudsters convince victim users to become “money mules” to further the fraudsters' criminal goals.
Here below are some examples:
Figure 1 - Part A
Figure 1 - Part B
Figure 2
The emails above demonstrate how fraudsters use persuasion to get an innocent user victim (who has probably lost her job recently) to respond.
They offer a lot of money to victims that may be facing hard economic times.
The number of emails like those above increased during 2009, and this has probably happened possibly because of the economic crisis. The economic crisis has made it easier for fraudster to exploit others.
Mule Liability
The mules cooperating in the fraud scheme in many cases are simply innocent victims just looking to make some extra money. However, that does not change the fact that they are operating illegally and will be held accountable for their actions. Most times, law enforcement will approach them expecting information and will not arrest them since they obviously did not realize they were committing a crime.
In Italy, for example, a money mule risks severe penalties, depending on the case. The risk can vary from 4 to 12 years of jail time and/or penalties from 1,000 to 15,000 Euros.
How do you avoid the scam?
CA ISBU Research Team advises all users (both corporate and consumer) to ignore and/or delete emails with the characteristics explained above. Remove them immediately and if possible consult CA ISBU and/or Law Agencies.
We foresee new forms of work-at-home scams or other jobs that require people to be “mules” and collaborate in the fraudulent operations.
Fraudsters are always inventing new sophisticated techniques of social engineering but the resulting fraud is always the same, so … look out!
Tags: cyber crime, email, mule, mule recruiting, phishing, phishing attack, recruiting, rossano, Rossano Ferraris, scam, scareware, security, spam
By: Rossano Ferraris
Rossano Ferraris based in Italy and is the functional lead of the Internet Security Intelligence team, within CA’s Internet Security Business Unit (CA ISBU). His main objectives are to identify emerging and prevalent threats in order to provide strategic security responses to the internet security and...
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