A new report released today reveals the scope and scale of the money laundering problem inside the global financial system. BioCatch – the leader in digital fraud detection and financial crime prevention powered by behavioural intelligence – received reports of nearly 2 million money mule accounts from 257 financial institutions in 21 countries on five continents deploying the company’s anti-fraud, scams, and financial crime solutions in 2024.

“The tip-of-the-iceberg metaphor is tired and overused,” BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Tom Peacock said, “but these 2 million muleaccounts our customers reported in 2024 likely represent only a fraction of the money laundering accounts either in use or lying dormant within the world’s 44,000 financial institutions last year.”

The report, titled “Global money mule networks: Using behavioural and device intelligence to shine a light on money laundering,” provides an extensive look at how organised crime employs money mules to launder their illicit profits, diagraming how a variety of different types of mules operate as part of broader, often sprawling, money-washing networks.

“One of the major discoveries we uncovered while collaborating with financial institutions via our Mule Account Detection solution was how mule accounts connect fraud, financial crime, and money laundering,” BioCatch Senior Vice President of Emerging Solutions Kevin Donovan said. “While Europol links 90% of money mules to cybercrime, the rest of these accounts launder the proceeds of a litany of other offenses. And they’re all part of the same criminal ecosystem. Scammers employ victims of human trafficking. Investment scam victims act as money mules.”

According to NASDAQ’s 2024 Global Financial Crime Report, $3.1 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the global financial system last year alone.

Other Key Report Findings

• Young people most vulnerable: Nearly two-thirds of money mules in the UK are younger than 30. In the U.S., those 25-35 are most likely to enlist – unwittingly or intentionally – as money mules, often enticed by the prospect of a side hustle.
• Most unaware of potential punishments: The average money laundering sentence in the U.S. is 71 months. In the UK, it can mean up to 14 years in prison, and in Australia, 12 months to life behind bars.
• Mules are cheap: Australian gangs pay their mules just $500 AU for the unrestricted use of their bank accounts.
• Money laundering cases on the rise: Whether due to increased attention, detection, the popularity of the crime, or all the above, money laundering cases in the U.S. rose by 14% between 2019 and 2023.