The Money Mule: Its Discursive Construction and the Implications.

• Author: Hulsse, Rainer
• Position: Laundering proceeds of cybercrime

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 1008 II. THE REALITY CONSTITUTED BY THE DISCOURSE (CONTENT) 1012 A. The Money Mule 1012 B. The Criminal Behind the Mule 1015 C. The Financial Institutions 1017 III. HOW THE DISCURSIVE REALITY IS CONSTITUTED (MECHANISMS) 1018 A. Narrative 1018 B. Visualization 1020 C. Metaphor 1024 IV. WHAT FOLLOWS FROM ALL THAT? (IMPLICATIONS) 1026 A. Educating Citizens, Rather Than Punishing Them 1026 B. Being Hard on Money Transmitters, Not on Banks 1027 C. Blaming Other Countries, Rather Than Oneself 1029 V. CONCLUSION 1030 I. INTRODUCTION

According to law enforcement authorities, the proceeds of cybercrime are typically laundered by so-called money mules, used by cybercriminals to break the paper trail of money stolen from people's bank accounts or credit cards through Internet fraud such as phishing. The criminals normally recruit money mules in Western countries so that they do not have to transfer the stolen money directly to their own bank accounts, as this would make it rather easy for law enforcement to discover the beneficiaries. Often, at least according to the sources examined here, the money mules do not know that they are part of a criminal operation, as they have replied to fake job offers or scam emails, which make them believe they work as "financial agents" for legitimate companies. The criminals transfer the proceeds of their crime to their "financial agents'" bank accounts and then ask them to withdraw the money and pay it to a money transmitter like Western Union or MoneyGram, to transfer it to the criminals in Eastern Europe or West Africa. For his or her services, the money mule receives a commission.

This Article takes issue with the role of the money mule in international money laundering. However, instead of addressing the topic from an objectivist and positivist perspective which seeks to identify the principle facts, variables, and causal mechanisms, the Article looks at the money mule from the inter-subjectivist and post-positivist perspective of discourse analysis. The goal of such a discourse approach is to understand how what is considered the taken-for-granted reality (here, of money laundering) has been constituted in discourse.

The first Part of the Article reconstructs the international discourse about the money mule in order to identify the content of the mule-constructions: How is the money mule process constituted in discourse? The money mule is typically characterized as an innocent victim who is not aware of the criminal nature of what he or she is doing but simply wants to earn some extra money. The criminals, according to the discourse, are not some petty criminals, but members of complex networks of organized crime. The criminal organizations are directed either from Eastern Europe, notably Russia or Ukraine, or from West Africa, especially from Nigeria. As the money is sent there via money remittance companies like Western Union, these companies constitute part of the problem.

The second Part of the Article reconstructs the discourse with a view to understanding the discursive mechanisms which establish the money mule reality: What are the discursive mechanisms through which the money mule is constituted? Here, narratives, visualizations, and metaphors bring about the money mule reality: rather than offering only dry numbers and abstract descriptions, reports of FIUs and other actors make use of narratives so that the money mule case studies they present almost read like crime thrillers. Also, pictures, photographs, and figures help one see and understand what money mules do and who they are, and so do the different metaphors which structure the discourse, most obviously the mule metaphor, but also metaphors like phishing and orchestration.

The third Part of the Article inquires into the effects of these constructions, assuming that they make possible certain kinds of policies while excluding others, as certain measures appear normal in the light of the above constructions, whereas others are virtually unthinkable. Which (policy) reactions do the money mule constructions make possible, and which become impossible? The construction of the money mule as an innocent victim directs anti-money laundering towards public awareness-raising campaigns, while making it difficult to articulate policies which seek to deter the money mule through harsh penalties. Also, the construction of the money transmitter companies as quasi-accomplices of cybercriminal networks enables anti-money laundering measures targeted against these companies, whereas banks do not play much of a role in the fight against money-muling. And finally, the construction of Western Africa and Eastern Europe as the home bases of cybercriminals brings about anti-money laundering policies that seek to rule out money laundering in these places rather than in the West--although one can hardly claim that countries in the North and West, Switzerland for example, are immune to money laundering.

The approach of this Article is based on post-structuralist discourse theory and method, which enjoy considerable popularity in the discipline of International Relations (IR), though arguably more among European than American IR scholars. In particular, this Article builds on authors who have argued that discursive mechanisms such as narratives, (1) pictures, (2) and metaphors (3) should come under scrutiny, because one can only understand how exactly reality is being made, if one studies the precise discursive means of reality production. (4) While methodological rigor is a stranger to poststructuralism--some proponents of discourse analysis even claim that it is an attitude rather than a method--it is important to make transparent what this Article is doing. Most importantly, to clarify the sources used for this discourse analysis: this Article focuses on official discourse, including not only documents published by international organisations such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the FATF-style regional body MONEYVAL, or the EU law enforcement agency Europol, but also of national authorities like FIUs or the police. This Article also includes statements and interviews by officials of the above organizations. When talking about documents, this not only includes written documents such as typology reports or annual reports (though they are principal sources), but also educational videos published by law enforcement agencies or posters and flyers by these same actors.

As far as the time frame of the analysis is concerned, this Article goes back as far as possible, in annual reports for example, to find out when the money mule first entered the discursive stage. Research revealed it was around the year 2005 that the money mule first appeared in official documents.

With regard to geographical focus, this Article focuses on how the money mule is constructed in the OECD world--that is, in countries of the North and the West. Therefore, this Article only covers FIU reports of countries like Switzerland and Germany, not of Ghana or Guatemala (which normally do not publish such reports anyway), and of international organizations that are firmly rooted in the Western hemisphere like Europol or FATF, the latter having started out as a club-organization set up by the United States. (5)

Within IR, there is now a considerable body of literature on money laundering, most of which focuses on the global governance of anti-money laundering. (6) Whereas some authors focus more on international organizations like FATF, (7) others are interested mainly in those countries which are hesitant with regards to the implementation of anti-money laundering regulation. (8) There is also IR literature on organized crime, including cybercrime. (9) The role of money mules, however, remains largely unexplored, not only for IR, but for the social sciences more generally, where work on money mules or physical cash smuggling more broadly is the rare exception. (10)

The remainder of this Article is organized as follows: The next Part reconstructs the content of the money mule discourse, i.e., the principal constructions of the money mule process (Part II). In the subsequent step, the Article examines the discursive mechanisms through which these constructions are established (Part III), before turning to the possible effects of the money mule discourse (Part IV). In the Conclusion, the Article briefly discusses how the money mule could become such a big issue in anti-money laundering circles (Part V).

2. THE REALITY CONSTITUTED BY THE DISCOURSE (CONTENT)

   This Part reconstructs the money mule discourse in order to identify its principle constructions. It begins with the key figure, namely the money mule, then looks at the criminal that stands behind the mule, and finally reconstructs the role of financial institutions.

   1. The Money Mule

      Who are the money mules who are portrayed as vulnerable targets of criminals? According to the principle narrative, the typical mule is a young male person in a Western/Northern country, looking for extra income. Often the mule is a student, who is tricked by criminals and therefore not aware of having committed a crime. The mule is constructed as an innocent victim rather than a criminal. The following paragraphs look at these constructions in more detail.

      Whereas the criminals behind the mules are said to reside abroad, the mule is normally from a developed country in the North/West. (11) And, typically, the mule is portrayed as a white person. (12) In the case studies by the Swiss FIU, the mule is almost always a Swiss national, (13) and Europol illustrates the money mule process in a chart that describes three mules, all of whom hold accounts in EU countries. (14)

      Moreover, the mule is portrayed as a person seeking extra income. Three groups of people stand out as particularly vulnerable due to their precarious economic statuses: First, senior citizens, as they not only may need some...