US Ministry of Justice announced that for 3 months more than 4,000 lawsuits were initiated during the fight against cash mules involved in romance scams (Romance Scam), compromising e-mail (Beci) and other fraudulent schemes.
Monetary mules are people who provide money transfer services (sometimes unintentional) for laundering stolen funds. Some of the mules are voluntary participants in the scam, receiving money from victims, and then transferring it to scammers. Others may not participate in the scam of their own free will – they can, at the request of the request, not understanding that they help criminals transfer cash.
The actions of law enforcement agencies were directed against both types of mules. The operation was attended by the FBI, the Ministry of Justice, the internal investigation service and the USA postal inspection service (USPS). USPS played an important role in the investigation, during which about 4,000 letters were delivered that warn people that their activities contribute to fraud.
The USPS representative noted that any person can be called a cash mule, but criminals often choose students, job seekers and people on dating sites. When mules use US Post to send or receive funds from scammers, postal inspectors quickly intervene and stop the activities of money mules.
In addition, 12 civilian and administrative claims were instituted, and criminal cases against 25 people for participating in the laundering processes.
One of the criminals – 73 -year -old Craig Clayton from the United States – was arrested in February for using his accounting and business of the Virtual Financial Director to launder revenues from Internet monitoring schemes.
In the period from 2019 to 2023, Kleiton allegedly created 65 fake companies in the United States and used them to open about 80 bank accounts. Then the offender transferred more than $ 35 million through open accounts for his customers, taking away the commission.
In another case, the accused 34-year-old rolled from the United States was involved in a multimillion-dollar scam with technical support. According to the case file, Bansvarvari used a fake pop -up advertising on the Internet to freeze the screens of the victims computers and make them think that the victims need technical support to solve the problem.
The announcements displayed the phone numbers of Banvari’s fraudulent companies, and when the victims called the announcement number with a request for help, they were convinced to buy services to solve non -existent computer problems. In this way, Bansvari deceived thousands of victims, many of whom were elderly people, worth more than $ 7 million
The efforts of law enforcement agencies this year are a fifth campaign to eliminate the networks of monetary mules. From the first campaign, in which about 400 law enforcement agencies participated, public structures took action in more than 12,000 cases of fraud and claim that these efforts complicated the receipt of profit from fraud by criminals.