ACAMS Pittsburgh Chapter 2025 July Virtual Event: Money mule accounts play a critical role in the world of financial crime

Overview

Money mules are accounts that play a role in the financial crime and fraud supply chain infrastructure. Providing a mechanism to cash out fraudulent transactions or hide the digital tracks of fraud, these accounts anonymize stolen money, making it difficult to trace and protecting fraudsters from law enforcement and authorities. Among fraudsters’ favorite methods is exchanging money for cryptocurrency or sending money to a money transfer service. Tracing the flow of money is challenging for authorities in both cases, and for financial institutions, this represents a critical problem that may result in severe fines. Money mule accounts are hard to detect since their activity varies based on their level of participation, from intentional misuse to being indirectly complicit.