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This paper aims to provide a systematic literature review (SLR) on contemporary cardinal money mule issues.

This paper reviews the most common money mule themes in perpetrating financial crime activities, especially its roles, recruitment and awareness. A systematic review protocol called preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols is adopted for this study.

Money mules are used by organized criminal groups (OCG) or fraudster to launder illicit funds from outrageous criminal activities. They allow their accounts to be used for money laundering by OCG. The attacker, OCG or fraudsters would layer the stolen funds using money mule accounts. These money mules are recruited using various approaches, oftentimes deceived by opulent lifestyles to captivate the interest of potential money mules.

This paper presents money mule awareness needed by accountant, bank employees and the society. It is an unprecedented SLR on money mule. This paper will be beneficial for future money mule researchers, enforcement agencies and practitioners in banking industry.

This paper aims to help build awareness with financial institutions about the money laundering risks posed by individuals who have been unknowingly recruited as Money Mules and the measures that financial institutions can adopt to detect illicit funds which are being received into the bank accounts of low risk or medium risk customers who are unknowingly recruited as “Money Mules”.

The research took the form of a desk study, which analysed various documents and reports such as a 2019 report on Money Mules by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (EUROPOL); a 2019 and 2020 report on Money Mules by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB); the Financial Action Task Force Guidance on the Risk Based Approach to Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (High Level Principles and Procedures) 2007; the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations 2012; the United Kingdom’s Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017; the United States Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual 2014; Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2018; The UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (as amended); the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group JMLSG, Prevention of money laundering/combating terrorist financing: Guidance for the UK financial sector Part I June 2017 (Amended December 2017); the United States Codified Bank Secrecy Act Regulations (31 CFR); the Nigerian Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 (as amended); and the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group JMLSG, Prevention of money laundering/combating terrorist financing: Guidance for the UK financial sector Part II: Sectoral Guidance June 2017 (Amended December 2017).

This paper determined that financial institutions may be able to prevent proceeds of crime from being laundered by individuals who have been unknowingly recruited as Money Mules if they focus monitoring resources on the emotionally vulnerable customers like newcomers to the country, unemployed people who may have lost their jobs because of a pandemic like COVID-19, students and those in economic hardship; pay very close attention to the country of origin where the funds emanate from; pay very close attention to the country where the funds are being transferred to; and pay close attention to frequent large cash deposits followed by wire transfers.

While most articles focus on the money laundering risk(s) associated with Money Mules and the measures that individuals can use to ensure that their bank accounts are not used by criminals to launder illicit funds, this paper focuses on the different mechanisms that banks can use to detect illicit funds which are being received into the bank accounts of low risk or medium risk customers who are unknowingly recruited as “Money Mules”. This paper recommends a proportional approach that balances anti-money laundering measures, financial inclusion and human rights. The mechanisms/measures which have been extensively discussed in this paper will help banks to identify, assess and understand their money laundering and terrorist financing risks as it relates to Money Mules and take commensurate measures to mitigate them.

This paper aims to explain the role of money mules in money laundering and financial crimes through the discussion of case studies. The authors also explain the red flags of money mules and provide advice.

The authors use a case analysis approach. The paper mainly discusses ten cases about the use of money mules in financial crimes.

It has been found that money mules help criminal syndicates to remain anonymous while moving funds around the world. The unemployment, internet usage involvement of teenagers and youth in money laundering-related crime around the world are on a rising trend, and criminals are constantly looking for their victims by exploiting their mental and financial condition.

This paper provides case studies to understand the role of money mules in money laundering and financial crime.

Telecommunication (telecom) fraud is one of the most common crimes and causes the greatest financial losses. To effectively eradicate fraud groups, the key fraudsters must be identified and captured. One strategy is to analyze the fraud interaction network using social network analysis. However, the underlying structures of fraud networks are different from those of common social networks, which makes traditional indicators such as centrality not directly applicable. Recently, a new line of research called deep random walk has emerged. These methods utilize random walks to explore local information and then apply deep learning algorithms to learn the representative feature vectors. Although effective for many types of networks, random walk is used for discovering local structural equivalence and does not consider the global properties of nodes.

The authors proposed a new method to combine the merits of deep random walk and social network analysis, which is called centrality-guided deep random walk. By using the centrality of nodes as edge weights, the authors’ biased random walks implicitly consider the global importance of nodes and can thus find key fraudster roles more accurately. To evaluate the authors’ algorithm, a real telecom fraud data set with around 562 fraudsters was built, which is the largest telecom fraud network to date.

The authors’ proposed method achieved better results than traditional centrality indices and various deep random walk algorithms and successfully identified key roles in a fraud network.

The study used co-offending and flight record to construct a criminal network, more interpersonal relationships of fraudsters, such as friendships and relatives, can be included in the future.

This paper proposed a novel algorithm, centrality-guided deep random walk, and applied it to a new telecom fraud data set. Experimental results show that the authors’ method can successfully identify the key roles in a fraud group and outperform other baseline methods. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the largest analysis of telecom fraud network to date.

The use of computer technology to commit cyber laundering increases their social danger, creates new ways to commit cyber laundering, causes the masking of traces of cyber laundering and expands the geography of cyber laundering, while eliminating traditional state borders. That is why, the researched problems have a high level of relevance. The purpose of this research is to promote the spread of international standards in the field of combating money laundering, as well as an analysis of the mechanisms of money laundering obtained from cybercrime.

The leading methods that were used in the article for the purpose of conducting research were a number of general scientific methods, such as analysis and synthesis, deduction, induction, forecasting, modeling, analogy and a number of special methods of study and cognition, which include comparative legal, historical legal, formal legal and structural functional methods.

The main results prospects for further research and the applied value of the material. Large-scale cyber laundering of illegal income has long become a global problem that requires a solution from all states of the world, which means that these problems can only be overcome through active interstate cooperation.

The article analyzes inter alia the international legislation in the field of money laundering mechanisms obtained from cybercrime and examines the activities of international organizations in this area.

This study aims to illustrate and determine how illegally obtained funds are laundered through online platforms and companies in different economic sectors in the digital age.

A qualitative analysis approach using purpose sampling methods, including 21 semi-structured interviews with prevention experts, compliance officers and convicted cybercriminals, resulted in the determination of concrete money-laundering methods involving the employment of online platforms provided by companies and institutions in different economic sectors.

The current study focuses on various companies in different economic segments that mitigate cyber laundering and the anti-money laundering measures that can be adopted. Therefore, this paper provides a detailed discussion and analysis on how money launderers avoid being detected. Both preventive and criminal perspectives are taken into consideration.

By identifying the gaps in the current anti-money-laundering mechanisms, it will provide compliance officers, legislators and law enforcement agencies with an in-depth insight into how cyber laundering operates in various economic sectors.

The purpose of this research paper is to review and synthesize the role of blockchain technology (BCT) in various types of illegal activities, including but not limited to fraud, money laundering, ransomware attacks, firearms, drug tracking, cyberattacks, identity theft and scams.

The authors conducted a review of studies related to illegal activities using blockchain from 2015 to 2023. Next, a thematic review of the literature was performed to see how these illegal activities were conducted using BCT.

Through this study, the authors identify the relevant themes that highlight the major illegal activities performed using BCT, its possible steps for prevention and the opportunities for future developments. Finally, the authors provide suggestions for future research using the theory, context and method framework.

No other research has synthesized the illegal activities using BCT through a thematic approach to the best of the authors’ knowledge. Hence, this study will act as a starting point for future research for academic and technical practitioners in this area.

This paper aims to determine the types of legal mechanisms that authorities can use to recover stolen assets for and from China.

Newspaper articles and books are examined as are relevant reports by various regulatory authorities and academic institutions.

The effectiveness of legal mechanisms in the recovery of stolen assets may be affected by issues such as the difficulties in tracing illicit funds, the ambiguous nature of “value” as well as the rise in technology.

There are limited data available in relation to the prevalence of corrupt officials along the Belt and Road Initiative and the statistical success in the recovery of stolen assets. Any discussions within this paper are based on the impressionistic observations of this author, which may not reflect the true state of affairs of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Those who are interested in examining how authorities could recover stolen assets from and for China will have an interest in this topic.

The value of the paper is to demonstrate the difficulties in recovering stolen assets for and from China.

Policy mobility scholarship concerning anti-money laundering (AML) has typically favoured the study of power structures and interests to the neglect of the constructivist perspective and the local cultural–symbolic driving forces of policy adoption. This study aims to redress this, by analysing the shifting ideational drivers of AML policy in Singapore over the past 31 years through a thematic analysis of Singapore’s parliamentary debates (Hansard).

Through a thematic analysis of Singapore's Hansard over the past 31 years, this study seeks to present a social constructivist perspective of AML policy adoption in Singapore.

The thematic analysis reveals how the internal driving forces of AML policy in Singapore have shifted, from the idea of “crime prevention” in the early 1990s, to the symbolic value of “international norm compliance” by the 2010s.

This constructivist perspective of AML policy adoption is particularly useful in complementing the existing materialist theories of AML policy diffusion and allows us to better appreciate the historical nuances of AML policy transfer across the globe.

This research will provide a useful comparative case study for other policy mobility scholars interested in presenting a constructivist account of AML policy adoption in different jurisdictions.

There is no literature in the field of policy mobility, explaining the diffusion/transfer of AML policy from a social constructivist perspective.