Here’s the setup: someone reaches out — maybe online, maybe through a ‘job offer,’ maybe through a romantic connection — and asks you to receive money into your account, then send it somewhere else. They might say it’s for a business. They might say they just need help moving funds. They might offer you a cut.
Don’t do it.
According to the FBI, what you’d be doing is called acting as a money mule — moving illegally acquired funds at someone else’s direction. And it’s a crime. Full stop. Not a gray area. Not a technicality. A real federal crime.
The part that catches people off guard: you can be prosecuted even if you didn’t know the money was dirty. The FBI is clear that acting as a money mule is illegal and punishable whether or not you were aware you were committing a crime. You could end up as part of a criminal money laundering conspiracy — and face prosecution and incarceration — even if you thought you were just doing someone a favor.
The Department of Justice weighs in too: while knowingly moving money for illegal activities can lead to serious criminal charges, the DOJ also makes clear that many money mules move money at someone else’s direction without knowing their activity is benefiting fraudsters — and that doesn’t protect them from consequences. Plenty of people who get caught up in this weren’t doing it knowingly. They were recruited without understanding what they were actually helping with.
And what were they helping with? According to the FBI, people who send and receive money at someone else’s request are likely helping criminals steal from everyday people, senior citizens, and small businesses. The money flowing through your account didn’t come from nowhere — it came from someone who got scammed or robbed.
So if someone you met online, or even someone you know, asks you to use your bank account to move money around — that’s the red flag. Doesn’t matter how legit it sounds. Doesn’t matter if they say it’s for a job, a business, or an emergency. The moment you’re moving someone else’s money through your account at their direction, you’re in dangerous territory.
Your bank account is yours. Keep it that way.