FBI Shuts Down 18 Websites Used to Recruit Money Mules

Specialists from the FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service have seized eighteen domains that were being used to recruit money mules for work-from-home scams and reshipping fraud schemes.

The now-closed websites offered users jobs at what appeared to be legitimate companies as “quality control inspectors.” The mules’ tasks included shipping various goods from their home addresses and even purchasing items using their own bank cards. Victims were instructed to photograph received packages and then forward them to another address according to specific instructions. For each shipment, mules were paid $20 and reported their activities through online platforms that were presented as collaboration systems.

The FBI gained access to one mule’s account, where they found a history of 25 fraudulent purchases, including a laptop bought with a stolen credit card.

“A woman from Hazelwood allowed investigators to use her credentials to log into the LocalPost online panel. Records there showed that 25 packages had been sent to her address in Hazelwood, including a $1,500 laptop fraudulently purchased with a credit card belonging to a man from St. Louis County,” law enforcement officials reported.

Authorities began investigating this scheme back in February 2021, after the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 64 complaints about the scammers.

Although the domains have been seized, their operators are located in other countries, so no arrests have been reported. The closed websites now display a special law enforcement notice about the domain seizure and warn job seekers about the risks associated with work-from-home and reshipping scams.