Money Mule Risk Assessment: An Introductory Guidance for Financial Crime Compliance Officers

Abstract

Money mule phenomenon is a global threat that inflicts the financial system. It is one of money laundering concerns affecting the banking institutions and require enigmatic compliance effort. Criminals such as fraudsters, scammers and cyber attackers use money mules to launder their ill-gotten proceeds. The principal aim of engaging money mule is to hide the money trail and thus stymie any possible effort to investigate the underlying criminal activity. The proceed of fraud or scam is rarely directed to the criminal’s account. Therefore, it is vital for bank’s financial crime compliance officers to be able to perform money mule risk assessment when conducting money mule case investigation. The assessment begins with risk identification from Know Your Customer (KYC) information and transaction monitoring. The output from the money mule risk assessment would be useful in building up Suspicious Transaction Report (STR). This article introduces the concept of money mule risk assessment which would be beneficial to academicians and anti-money laundering practitioners.