New Delhi: A case of illegal transfer of funds by a person called the 'money mule' to an overseas account has been reported by HDFC Bank and a complaint in this regard has been launched with the cyber crime cell of the Mumbai Police.

Vishal Salvi, Chief information security officer, HDFC Bank said, "the bank had helped nab the money mule following a complaint by a customer that he has been a victim of phishing. The police are now investigating the case to find the fraudsters behind the fraud who are the ultimate beneficiaries."

This practice of 'money mule' has also been found by few other private sector banks and they have identified few account holders indulging in illegal inward and outward transfer of money, though they didn't provide any further information about such persons.

The Money Mule Process:

Hackers steal bank account details of an unwary customer by methods such as phishing and transfer the money to some account, which belongs to the hacker. They then try to recruit money mules by spending them spam emails, news letters, snail mails, by advertising in news papers or online job websites and using chat rooms. Hackers and fraudsters pose as financial managers or other top level functionaries and make it clear that no special knowledge or skill set is required for the job and it is a very easy money making opportunity involving just transfers of funds.

To gain credibility, the hackers even get 'official looking' contracts signed by the mules and convince that they are a part of international company. After a successful 'recruitment', the details of money mule's bank account are obtained and funds are transferred by fraudsters to mule's bank account. The mules are then asked by the fraudsters to transfer these funds to some overseas bank account usually via wire transfer and mules are compensated with some 'commission' for this service.

The usual practice is that once the money is transferred into an overseas bank account the fraudsters withdraw the funds, close the account and flee. The entire process makes a mule also susceptible to phishing attacks since he has compromised his bank account details to a fraudster.

What needs to be recognized is that acting as a money mule is an illegal activity and very few people are aware of this fact. Though this practice is pretty common in US and UK,  India is all set to become a popular destination of such fraudsters because of the recent liberalization of capital inflows and outflows.