Privacy Digest

Job Offers That Might Get You in a LOT of Trouble: "

There has recently been an increase in the amount of money-mule recruitment e-mails offering jobs for ‘payment processors,’ ‘foreign representatives,’ ‘overseas agents,’ ‘fund managers,’ or similarly named jobs. These spam e-mails are generally very vague and offer full- or part-time ‘employment,’ accepting payments and then passing them on to your ‘employer’ (fraudster).

The e-mails attempt to recruit members of the public to become money launderers, acting asmiddle-men and accepting payments for spammed goods and other dubious financial transactions, banking the money or converting it to foreign currencies, and then passing it on to the fraudster. In exchange for receiving a percentage of the funds being transferred, typically 5 percent to 10 percent, the ‘employee’ becomes the fall guy for the fraudster and is at risk of charges of money laundering and other criminal charges.

Spam gangs can send spam relatively anonymously using botnets and compromised PCs, but their money trail is one way that they could be traced and caught. By employing middle-men to accept payments and move the money on puts more of the risk and likelihood of getting caught onto these ‘employees’-while the spammers become more difficult to trace.

(Read Original Article - Via McAfee Avert Labs.)