By Third Party, 28 September 2010
Page last updated at 2:07 PM 28-09-2010
UNSUSPECTING jobseekers are funnelling stolen funds and goods worth an average of $4000 a time out of Australia into global fraud networks.
Students, the unemployed and those seeking extra cash become enmeshed as "mules" after falling for online ads offering work from home as financial agents or logistics officers for foreign traders, financial firms and charities.
Uri Rivner, head of consumer protection at RSA, the security division of EMC, warned the level of mule recruitment for credit card and banking fraud was now high.
"There is an underground online economy where fraudsters can buy tools, data and even specialised services," he said.
"A set of credit card details with the CCV2 (security code) number sells for between $1.50 and $3, while a banking log-on costs between $50 and $1000 per account, depending on how much is in it."
Typically, funds are siphoned from a compromised account within Australia and transferred to another local account, operated by the mule.
Retaining 10 per cent to 15 per cent as "wages", the mule then withdraws cash from the branch or an ATM, and wires it via Western Union or Travelex to an overseas account controlled by the crime boss.
But since banks and card companies have become better at deterring this type of fraud, fraudsters have switched their attention to shopping websites, where they buy expensive items with stolen or fake cards.
"However, since they can't send the goods to their own address, they rely on reshipping mules to receive and then forward the deliveries,'' Mr Rivner said.
"If someone in eastern Europe steals a credit card in Australia, they might order a laptop from a US e-commerce site and try to ship it directly to an address in Russia, say. But the website is likely to be very suspicious about that, so the fraudster recruits a mule here or in the US, and gets the mule to ship it offshore."
Mr Rivner said local mules were responsible for bank transfers worth about $4000 on average, and often were only used for one or two transactions as people became uneasy about the arrangements.
But some mules specialised in moving money between company accounts, and on average these transactions were worth $15,000 each.
Fraudsters in non-English-speaking nations often employed fraud "call centres" that provided them with phone services in which authentication was required for funds transfers.
"These call centres place a call for around $10-$15 to the victim bank or business, and they can also set up local numbers for a return call if that's expected," he said. "They are operating these centres 24-seven."
Despite increasing volumes of fraud activity, Mr Rivner said law enforcement agencies were having some successes.
"Seven or eight years ago police were pretty clueless, but nowadays the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol and national police forces are all collaborating with each other," he said.
"Arrests are being made, but we tend not to talk about what is happening."
Sourced from The Australian
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