Money Mules: How Teens and Students Get Recruited Into Crime

What a money mule actually is

A money mule is someone who lets stolen money pass through their own bank account — receiving it from a criminal, then moving it on, usually keeping a small cut for themselves.

The US FBI puts it as plainly as it can be put: a money mule is "someone who transfers or moves illegally acquired money on behalf of someone else." The job, stripped of whatever story comes with it, is to be a link in a chain that carries other people's stolen money.

A money mule is someone who receives and moves money that came from victims of fraud.

— U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Criminals need a mule because they cannot move stolen funds straight to themselves without leaving a trail that leads back to the crime. An ordinary, unremarkable personal account — a teenager's, say — breaks that trail. Interpol describes mules as people who help to "legitimize" criminal funds by passing them through their own accounts — what anti-money-laundering specialists call the "layering" stage, hopping the money through a chain of clean-looking accounts until the original source is buried.

And the money is not abstract. Europol reports that more than 90% of the money-mule transactions it identifies are linked to cybercrime — phishing, business-email scams, online-shopping fraud, romance scams. In other words, the cash a teen moves was almost certainly taken from another real person.

Law enforcement sorts mules into three rough types: unwitting (recruited and genuinely unaware they are part of a crime), witting (they ignore the warning signs), and complicit (fully in on it). Many teenagers start in the first group. But the label matters far less than the bank record, which shows only one thing: their name on the account the money went through.

So whatever it is dressed up as — a flexible online job, a favour for a partner who "can't use their own account right now," a chance to earn a commission for almost nothing — moving someone else's money through your account for a fee is money laundering. And the account holder is the person attached to it.

How teens and students get recruited

Teens and students are recruited the same way most scams reach them — through an offer that looks like easy money or an ordinary job, delivered somewhere they already spend their time. A handful of routes come up again and again.

• Fake job ads. Roles with titles like "money transfer agent," "payment processor," or "financial assistant," often pitched as flexible work-from-home jobs. The US CFTC has warned that students are pitched roles that mainly involve receiving and forwarding money; the FBI has flagged emails sent to university accounts advertising fake payroll or HR jobs that just require the student's bank details to receive a deposit and pass part of it on.
• "Easy money" and "money flipping" posts. Adverts on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Telegram promising to "turn £50 into £500," wrapped in images of cash and a luxury lifestyle to make it look low-risk and aspirational.
• Gaming chats. Recruiters posing as a gaming or IT company ask a young player to accept customer payments, keep a percentage, and convert the rest to cryptocurrency — a transfer dressed up as a side gig.
• Online relationships. The same catfishing route used for other scams: an online partner who "briefly can't use their own account" asks the teen to receive and forward money as a proof of trust.
• In person. UK fraud investigators report young people being approached directly outside schools, colleges, and sports clubs, not only online.
• Marketplace overpayment. A "buyer" on a selling app deliberately overpays for an item and asks the teen to refund the difference — quietly turning their account into a pass-through.

The common thread is unmistakable once you know to look for it: every version ends in the same request — let me move money through your account. No legitimate job needs that: an employer may ask for your bank details to pay you, but never to receive and pass on other people's money. As the UK's fraud-prevention body Cifas puts it for young people, if an offer of money sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.

When the recruitment runs through a fake relationship rather than a fake job, it tends to follow the same arc as any other online manipulation — affection first, the ask later. The pillar guide traces that sequence in where catfishing leads.

Why criminals target young people

Criminals target young people because a teenager's bank account is exactly what they need: new, clean, with no history of suspicious activity — and attached to someone who may not yet realise that moving money for a stranger is a crime.

A fresh account looks unremarkable to a bank's fraud systems, which is the whole point. There is no pattern to break, no years of normal behaviour to contradict. The mule's account buys the criminal a clean step in the chain.

On top of that sits a gap in awareness. Surveys repeatedly find that many young people do not know money muling is a crime at all, or that it is tied to far more serious offences. A 2025 Barclays survey reported that around a third of Gen Z respondents would consider moving money for someone they did not know if they were offered a fee — an attitude figure, not a crime statistic, but a telling one. Quick cash, low perceived risk, and "it's only my account" make a persuasive combination.

International students are targeted especially hard, often with offers framed as a flexible "side hustle." The Australian Federal Police has identified networks offering students around a thousand Australian dollars a month plus commission to act as mules, deliberately seeking out people who are financially stretched and still learning how the local banking and legal systems work.

The scale skews young. In the first half of 2023, Cifas and UK Finance reported that of the cases on the UK's National Fraud Database bearing the hallmarks of money muling, around 23% involved people aged 21 and under, and 64% involved people up to age 30. Those are cases flagged as indicative of muling, not confirmed convictions — but the age pattern is consistent and striking.

The problem has not gone away since. Cifas's most recent Fraudscape, covering 2025, logged more than 22,000 money-muling cases under a newly introduced, more specific filing category. That change in how cases are counted makes a clean year-on-year comparison unreliable — so treat the raw totals with care — but it is not a sign the activity has slowed.

What it costs a teenager

The cost is far bigger than the small cut a recruiter offers. Acting as a money mule is money laundering, and the fallout can follow a young person for years — long after the few hundred pounds is spent and forgotten.

The account gets shut down. Banks watch for this constantly, and once an account is caught being used to move criminal funds, it can be frozen, restricted, or closed after the bank investigates. That alone can be a serious disruption for a teenager who relies on it.

A fraud marker can follow them. A marker is not automatic — the bank needs grounds to file one, and a record can be challenged or removed if the young person was genuinely deceived or coerced. But where one is filed, the activity is logged in the UK as a "misuse of facility" record on the Cifas National Fraud Database, where it can stay for up to six years — and during that time it can make it hard to open a new bank account, get a mobile-phone contract, take out a loan or credit card, or later be approved for a mortgage. Cifas also warns students they can lose their university place, on top of finding credit and loans harder to get.

There can be a criminal case. In the UK, money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act carries a maximum of 14 years — a statutory ceiling, not what a first-time teenager would typically face, and prosecutors are expected to weigh whether a young person was coerced or exploited. But a police investigation and a criminal record are real possibilities. In the US, federal money-laundering statutes carry penalties measured in years of imprisonment, and a mule may also be charged with wire or bank fraud.

"But I didn't know" is not a clean escape. In the UK the offence turns on whether the person knew or suspected the money was criminal, and suspicion is a low bar — so brushing past obvious red flags is not a safe defence. And even a genuinely unwitting mule can still see their account closed. For an international student in the US, the stakes climb higher still: certain money-laundering convictions above a statutory dollar amount can count as an "aggravated felony" in immigration law, and a fraud or money-laundering allegation can carry immigration consequences — so it is worth getting qualified legal advice early.

One sobering footnote: the official numbers almost certainly understate the problem. An FCA review found that firms reported only about 37% of the mule accounts they closed to the national database between January 2022 and September 2023 — so the number of young people quietly caught up in this is higher than the published figures suggest.

The warning signs you can see

The signs of money muling are usually about money and mood, not the device. The UK's Don't Be Fooled campaign points to a simple trio: sudden unexplained cash, expensive new things, and a teen who has become more secretive, withdrawn, or stressed.

• Money that doesn't add up. Extra cash, new clothes, a top-of-the-range phone or gadget, with no clear explanation of where the money came from.
• A vague new "job." Described in fuzzy terms, found through a text, DM, or WhatsApp message, that mainly seems to involve receiving and forwarding payments.
• Secrecy about the bank account. Guarding statements, a second account you did not know about, or unexpected letters from a bank.
• The "easy money" pitch. An offer overheard or mentioned to "borrow" their account, or an online partner who needs to route money through it.
• A change in mood. More withdrawn, secretive, or stressed than usual — the strain of being in something they cannot easily get out of.

As with any of these situations, no single item is proof of anything. Teenagers earn money in legitimate ways, value their privacy, and have moods. What matters is clustering — two or three of these appearing together within a short window — and the right response to a cluster is a calm, curious question, not an accusation.

How to respond as a parent

If you think your teen has been drawn into this, start with the conversation, not the account. Make it clear, first, that they are not in trouble with you — because shame and the fear of punishment are exactly what keep these situations hidden and let them get worse.

One thing comes before all of this. If your teen is being threatened or blackmailed, pressured to meet someone in person, or you fear for their immediate safety, treat that as the priority — call emergency services if there is immediate danger, and otherwise your local police (101 in the UK). A school safeguarding lead, or a child-protection service such as the NSPCC and its Childline in the UK, can also help.

Otherwise, move quickly on the practical steps, in roughly this order:

• Stop the transfers and preserve the evidence. Save the messages, the job advert, and any payment records before anything is deleted — they are what a report and, if needed, a defence are built on.
• Contact the bank straight away. They deal with this constantly and can flag or freeze the account. Getting ahead of it matters for how any marker is handled, especially if your teen was deceived or coerced.
• Do not confront the recruiter. Tipped off, they delete the account and the trail goes with them. Report them instead — in the UK you can do so anonymously through Crimestoppers.
• Report it through the proper channel. In the UK (England, Wales & Northern Ireland), to the police's Report Fraud service and the bank; in Scotland, to Police Scotland on 101; in the US, to the FBI's IC3 and ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
• Get qualified legal advice if it escalates. If the police make contact, the bank alleges misuse, your teen was coerced, or they are an international student, speak to a qualified lawyer before any detailed interview — the stakes (a record, a marker, a visa) are high enough to warrant it.

If your teen was recruited through an online relationship rather than a job advert, treat the relationship itself as a safety issue too, not just the money. The pillar guide's if your teen is already in it covers that side, and the legal and reporting map sets out the channels in more detail.

Once the immediate situation is contained, the conversation is worth having as prevention, not just repair. The rule is simple enough to say out loud: no legitimate job needs to move other people's money through their personal account, and they should never hand their bank details to someone they only know online — however friendly, however urgent.

If you decide you want more visibility for a while, make any monitoring open and time-limited — your teen knows the tool is there, what it shows, and when it will be reviewed. Hidden surveillance, once discovered, usually does more damage to trust than the thing it was meant to catch. Parental controls as scaffolding, not surveillance covers that setup.

Whatever you find, keep one message steady: a teenager who got pulled into this was worked by people who do it for a living, often through an offer engineered to look harmless. They are not a criminal mastermind, and they are not in trouble with you. Calm and openness are what get these situations resolved — and what make your teen willing to tell you sooner if something feels off next time.

Frequently asked questions