Over time Mule-as-a-Service (MAAS) have become an underground economy that facilitates illegal money laundering by redirecting Indian funds to offshore fraudsters. It shows how fraudsters set up and use mule accounts to hide the source of illegal cash. This poses a serious threat, slipping through the loopholes of established monitoring systems and allowing fraudsters to exploit payment networks such as UPI, debit/credit cards, and bank transfers often become unwilling participants in these fraudulent schemes, making MAAS a serious threat to financial ecosystems.
These gateways facilitate a range of scams, including fake e-commerce platforms, task scams, loan scams, gaming app fraud, and illegal betting. They create and manage extensive networks of mule accounts, rotating them to evade detection by banks. This makes tracing the money trail increasingly difficult and enables criminals to bypass monitoring systems.
Techniques used to Detect MAAS
To counter MAAS, financial institutions rely on further strategies:
- Transaction Monitoring with Bank Data: Banks use transaction pattern analysis to detect mule accounts.
- Detection from Mule Sources: This approach identifies mule accounts on platforms, offering precise results without bank data or complex setups.
- Proactive Tools and Industry Collaboration: mFilterIt’s mule account monitoring tool scans 25,000+ websites hourly, detecting fraud, capturing proof, and enhancing AI-based detection.
- mFilterIt identifies 18,000–20,000 mule accounts on regular basis and collaborates with banks, regulatory bodies, and payment platforms to stop this threat from happening.
Manage Mule Accounts Effectively
Mule-as-a-Service is a growing threat to financial systems, posing significant risks to both brand safety and financial integrity. This infographic will show how mFilterIt’s innovative solutions can help to secure financial networks.
