In this article, we are going to talk about a figure that, although it is less on the rise every day, has never ceased to be in the arena of bank fraud, it is the figure of the muleteer.
A bank muleteer is a person who has been tricked with evidence of social engineering (usually phishing) into receiving wire fraud transfers and moving money to “safe” sites for criminals.
That is to say, any of us in our daily lives can become one of these victims and become bank muleteers, in most cases without even knowing that we are playing that role of scammed person.
How does the scam occur? Normally you receive an email from a fictitious company offering work or extra remuneration to the person who receives it (due to the high level of unemployment in society it is a very effective way since people are wanting to have a job opportunity), such as following example shown below:
Example Mail Mulero Bancario
When the victim or muleteer offers to do the job, the steps to follow are explained
- Go to a bank, open an account in your name (if you do not have it previously) Receive money in that account (generally less than 3000 euros since the monitoring of this type of transfers is usually less) Withdraw all the money from the account in cash Keep a commission (usually around 10% of the total) Deposit it in another entity, usually the ones that leave no trace and can be withdrawn by another person, even in another country.
For the person who "opts for this job" it is an ideal opportunity, just by going to the bank, picking up a transfer and moving the money to another site, you can earn a large amount of money and only need an hour at most.
What is behind this type of scam is a fraud against someone other than the muleteer, whose online banking keys have been stolen in any way (through phishing, malware, etc.) and on behalf of this person A transfer is ordered to the muleteer mentioned above, he receives it himself and sends it to the scammer, usually with companies that send / receive money on the spot, such as 'Western Union' or 'MoneyGram'.
All this is perfectly coordinated by the scammers and is done in a period of one / two hours, so it is very difficult to reject the transfer or catch the muleteer before he gets to move the money, or any action that prevents the fraud.
Furthermore, in these cases, it is very difficult to detect the scammer because his name is nowhere to be found and the legal repercussions are for the muleteer since he is unknowingly carrying out a crime of money laundering in an uncontrolled manner towards third parties (also keeping the “commission” which is obviously fraudulent money).
In this case, in which the muleteers intervene, we have two victims, first the scammed who has made the fraudulent transfer in his account (this person in most cases will prove that he has been a victim of fraud and the money will be returned to him after an investigation) and the muleteer himself, who in addition to having been the victim of a scam, will have legal repercussions with the law and at least will have to return the money from the fraudulent transfer (of which he only received a tiny part).
Therefore, in both cases, you have to have common sense and be aware of and not open fraudulent emails that can reach, in the worst case, as we have told you to unknowingly turn you into a criminal.
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Fernando Saavedra
Cybersecurity Manager
Áudea Information Security
