Criminals are increasingly recruiting middle-aged people to act as “money mules”, research suggests.
Figures from Cifas, the fraud prevention service, showed that the number of people aged 40 to 60 being used by criminals to transfer funds between accounts rose by 35 per cent last year compared with the previous year.
Money mules are recruited, often without their knowledge, by criminals to transfer illegally obtained funds between different bank accounts. They receive stolen money into their account and are then asked to withdraw it and wire the funds to a different account, often overseas. Some keep some of the money for themselves.
The practice is used because anti-money laundering rules have made it harder for criminals to set up bank accounts using fake identities.
