What are 'money mules' and how can we halt this scam in its tracks?
This is Money Podcast
This is Money
4.1 • 650 Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2018
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A top bank has formed a 'money mule hunting squad' and is planning to share its secrets with rivals.
How does this scam work and what is being done to fight it? Should banks, universities and schools take more action to prevent young people getting sucked into helping hardened criminals hide their cash?
And as Nationwide starts turning away grandparents trying to deposit cash for their grandkids, what is behind this new curb on everyday cash transactions?
The interest-only mortgage timebomb is a hot topic again after we featured the story of Len and Val, who never missed a mortgage payment but still face losing their home.
This is Money Editor Simon Lambert and journalist Tanya Jefferies joined Georgie Frost to debate these issues.
Plus, Simon has an impassioned rant about potholes... Hear it all on this week’s podcast.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to This Is Money podcast in partnership with NS&I, your weekly roundup of the top personal finance, consumer and business stories that editor Simon Lambert and his team have been covering on their award-winning website. |
| 0:12.1 | I'm your host, Georgie Frost, and joining Simon I today is This Is Money's pension specialist, Tanya Jeffries. |
| 0:17.3 | And coming up, the rise of money mules, some as young as 14, what are banks doing to |
| 0:22.9 | combat the gangs targeting our kids? Also today, how concerned should we be about interest-only |
| 0:28.5 | mortgages? Simon gets angry about potholes, and Sainsbury's boss may be in the money, but with |
| 0:35.3 | a potential tie-out with ASDA in the offering, will shoppers? |
| 0:38.7 | All that and plenty more coming up. |
| 0:40.1 | And don't forget you to stay up to date with all the latest breaking money news. |
| 0:42.8 | Just go to this ismoney.com.uk or download the app. |
| 0:47.4 | This is Money, brought to you in partnership with NS and I, where safer savings set you free. |
| 0:54.9 | That's been a rough old time of it for banks, as the TSB debacle rumbles on and RBS shuts a load more branches. |
| 1:02.0 | It's a bit nicer to read something, slightly more positive. |
| 1:05.0 | We've covered the rise of money mules, that, by the way, is not positive. |
| 1:08.9 | On the show before, it's where individuals increasingly young people, some as young as 14, |
| 1:14.8 | allow their bank accounts to be used to enable the movement of illegal funds. |
| 1:18.7 | It's a form of money laundering with very strict penalties. |
| 1:21.8 | Now, gangs have been targeting secondary school and university students |
| 1:25.0 | with a lure of easy cash, largely via social media. |
| 1:29.3 | So Lloyd's banking group set up an innovative new team of fraud fighters earlier in the year, |
| 1:33.5 | which has already frozen £1 million from scammers. |
| 1:37.1 | So successful is it that this is money, has found out, that they're set to share the secret with others. |
| 1:43.9 | Okay, Simon, a little bit more, if you would, about money mules |
... |
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