The CFTC has issued a warning about “money mule” schemes that target on people looking for remote work.
People looking for work-from-home jobs should be wary of these fraudulent schemes, the regulator warned on Monday.
Office of Customer Education and Outreach (OCEO) director Melanie Devoe warns that summer job searchers, especially those interested in part-time online jobs, may be particularly susceptible to frauds. But she warned that in their role as innocent money mules for criminals, they put themselves in danger of going to prison.
It has come to light from the CFTC that criminal organizations are aggressively courting networks of individuals in order to launder money. In order to evade authorities, they change currencies, transfer illicit cash across bank accounts, and use blockchain technology.
Criminals often prey on the naive, who may be unaware they are a victim of their crimes. Those who fall prey to these predators often fool themselves into thinking they are assisting a friend, a love interest, or even a coworker. But the repercussions, which may include criminal prosecution, are the same for both intentional and unintentional participants.
In two recent incidents, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission severely punished money mule activities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) alleges that Debiex stole $2.3 million from its customers’ digital asset trading accounts by using classic romantic scam techniques.
A guy from California and his business were also the subjects of an enforcement action. They allegedly scammed over a million dollars from hundreds of people via a “pig slaughtering scheme” and a complicated romance hoax.
Two major warning signs that the CFTC outlined for possible victims were “off-ramping” and “on-ramping” crypto-assets. By using off-ramping, criminals may launder their money by sending you cryptocurrency and asking you to convert it to dollars.
But on the other side, on-ramping happens when criminals use your money to purchase cryptocurrency (for example, at a bitcoin kiosk) and then transfer it to another walle, allowing them to access the cryptocurrency system once again. Lastly, there’s “smurfing,” which is getting a significant quantity of crypto on your own, which may cause suspicion.
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