Don’t be a Mule! Money Muling Public Awareness and Prevention

EAST supports Europol’s Money Muling Awareness campaign #DontBeaMule which follows European Money Mule Action ‘EMMA3’ part of the third coordinated global action against money muling.  Money mules are recruited by criminal organisations as money laundering intermediaries to receive and transfer illegally obtained funds between bank accounts and/or countries. This illicit money muling helps fund other forms of organised crime, such as drug dealing, human trafficking and online fraud.

During an action week from 20 to 24 November 2017, 159 individuals were arrested across Europe, 409 were interviewed by law enforcement authorities and 766 money mules were identified. EMMA3 has evolved from previous editions towards targeting not only the money mules, but also the money mule organisers. This resulted in 59 recruiters/organisers being identified.

The third EMMA action week was the continuation of a project conducted under the umbrella of the EMPACT Cybercrime Payment Fraud Operational Action Plan, designed to combat online and payment card fraud, and led by the Netherlands. Building on the success of the first and second EMMA operations, EMMA3 saw the participation of law enforcement authorities from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service (USSS).