Anna Bligh Interview with ABC Newcastle on mule accounts

EO&E

Paul Turton: Have you ever heard of the scamming practice of crooks renting or buying bank accounts from normal citizens to move money in and out? Well, it’s a thing, apparently, and it’s prompted a joint campaign by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Banking Association. They’re called money mules, and they’re known to rent out their bank accounts to criminals for as little as 200 bucks, and apparently they’re in the crosshairs of the regulators and law-enforcement. Anna Bligh is CEO of the Australian Banking Association. She’s stepped out of a Sydney banking conference to join me this morning. It’s a pleasure to have her on. Anna, thanks for that. Good morning.

Anna Bligh: Good morning, Paul. Great to be talking to you.

Paul Turton: So, is this a well-known practice? How common is this?

Anna Bligh: Well, it’s more common than people would think. You know, if you go online and Google “rent a bank account,” you’ll find people making offers, astonishing as that might seem. If you think about it, for a scam to be successful, firstly they have to trick you in some way or form—one way or another—into sending money out of your account, but there’s got to be an account for it to go into, and these criminal networks are offering people money to either buy or rent their account, and, one, it’s illegal; but I think it’s important to say that some people are doing this knowing exactly what they’re doing, and many of them are part of the criminal networks themselves. But there’s another cohort of people who are also tricked into letting their account be used, or coerced, or just don’t realise. They think it’s a pretty harmless way of making some extra money. They don’t realise what it’s being used for. And frankly, if you’re renting your bank account, it could be being used by criminals to, you know, rip off someone in your family or someone you care about, and you should be very, very wary of ever thinking about doing it.

Paul Turton: And I guess the point is that someone who’s getting scammed is going to be less sceptical of an Australian bank account. If the numbering system looks okay and it looks legit, they’re more likely to go with it. But of course, the money is just parked there, and it’s whizzed out straight away. That would be the modus operandi, wouldn’t it?

Anna Bligh: That’s exactly right. So, it’s not a crypto platform or something that you’re very unfamiliar with. It looks just like every other, you know, BSB and account number that you might have paid legitimate bills to in the past, and that’s why it’s such a dangerous practice. I think, there’s a very simple rule here: if someone offers you money to use your bank account, it is probably 100 per cent certain that they are going to use it for a criminal purpose. These are accounts that were set up legitimately. You know, they’re not using false ID or anything dodgy. They’re ordinary people setting up their account, the bank’s doing the right thing, checking all their ID. They are legitimate. But then somewhere down the track, they decide to make some extra money by renting their account out. And you know, you can see a pattern: someone’s either their social-security money or their salary goes in every fortnight, they spend it on groceries, and then all of a sudden $20,000 goes in, and 24 hours later it bumps out to an overseas crypto platform. Now, banks increasingly have got the technology to identify and detect that kind of activity. They also have much better information-sharing capability now between banks, so when one bank sees that, you know, an account has been used for illegitimate purposes, they can advise every other bank in the system. So, we’re getting better at detecting it. Last year, they shut down 13,000 accounts, and it was 9,000 the year before. We’re not sure that that’s an increase in people doing this, or just an increase in the ability of banks to detect and shut down very quickly. So, you know, that gives you an idea: 13,000 accounts shut down last year. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t more people out there doing it—we just haven’t found them yet. But between banks and the AFP, that’s exactly what we’ve committed to doing.

Paul Turton: Yeah, earlier this year, a Sydney woman was jailed for renting ten bank accounts to a Vietnamese money-laundering syndicate. So there have been prosecutions, and you can see why it’s attractive—it’s a great way to cut corners for the crooks. I imagine that some people, at least, are able to rationalise their behaviour of renting their bank accounts by saying, “Well, I’m not doing anything wrong,” but they are, right?

Anna Bligh: Yes, as I said, often people think this is a very harmless way to make extra money, but really there’s no legitimate reason for someone to be renting your account. You can bet your bottom dollar they want to rent it for an illegitimate and illegal purpose. And one of the reasons that we want to be out here talking about it is—I think most Australians know that if you’re in an Asian airport and somebody asks you to take a parcel in your luggage, that you shouldn’t do it, that it’s likely to get you in a lot of trouble. Well, this is very similar, and it’s important that people understand that this can lead to jail time. It is very likely that it will mean your bank account being shut. You know, if your bank account gets shut down, well, you don’t get your wages, you don’t get your social-security payments. So, these are serious consequences, and people should be, as I said, very, very wary and steer clear of anyone who’s offering to do this.

Paul Turton: Anna Bligh, I appreciate you coming on today. Thanks.

Anna Bligh: Thanks for the opportunity.

Paul Turton: There’s a timely warning from the CEO of the Australian Banking Association, where there’s a conference in Sydney.

Ends

Anna BlighMule accounts