FBI warns about ‘money mule’ recruiters preying on people working from home
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The FBI’s Pittsburgh office is warning people to be wary of offers to earn money working from home during the mandated shutdown to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
“Watch out for ‘work from home’ fraud schemes that take advantage of uncertainty to promise easy money for little or no effort,” Eugene Kowel, acting special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh office, said in a posting to the agency’s Twitter account.
Kowel said the schemes typically involve a request for people to open a bank account or conduct financial transactions for others.
The scheme is often used to trick people into serving as “money mules” — a term used to describe somebody who “transfers illegally acquired money on behalf of, or at the direction of another,” according to the FBI.
Criminals recruit mules to move money electronically through bank accounts, move physical currency or assist with the movement of money through other methods.