Last week I received a similar e-mail from my co-founder, asking me if I could transfer some money to an account. I found it a little strange, but not enough to question that it actually had to be done. Since I was headed to the office anyway, I waited until I got in, and asked him what the money was for.
"What money? What email?"
Turns out the e-mail was sent from a fake gmail account with the name of my co-founder. Hadn't spotted that the email address was wrong, as it was hidden in my email client.
I reported the email to Google and sent the scammer a sarcastic reply: "how many millions do you need?"
The scammers' response? "You're fired"
What a cheeky fraudster! That said, I'm sure he has pulled it off before.
Fraudsters frequently use "smurfs", who are often less than sophisticated, to get around this.
Pretend you're a not-too-savvy-about-international-finance person in the US who, because you have a pulse and are at least minimally socially established, has a checking account. The Internets tell you that you can make good money working from home as an accounts payable clerk. On showing up to work on the first day, your new boss tells you that the job is occasionally getting an email with instructions regarding an incoming wire transfer into your bank account, with instructions to keep 10% for yourself (your salary, obviously) and forward 90% to the supplier he tells you. Totally aboveboard, right?
Money laundering is a fascinating, fascinating topic.
> Don't 'know your customer' laws ensure that no bank account is owned by an anon?
Unless your scammer is really, really stupid these accounts are in the names of third party patsies who are promised some cut or percentage of the amount, or have been conned into thinking they're helping someone out (usually the money would then be transferred from that US account to somewhere foreign via western union or the like).
Or in the name of some other person who has no idea the account exists. In the UK you basically need a utility bill and a photocopy of a passport to open an account which is not that hard to fake.
I'm in Denmark. We didn't get that far in the conversation though, but I'm sure the scammer had protective measures - like the ones mentioned by other replies - to prevent being caught easily after a transfer.
"What money? What email?"
Turns out the e-mail was sent from a fake gmail account with the name of my co-founder. Hadn't spotted that the email address was wrong, as it was hidden in my email client.
I reported the email to Google and sent the scammer a sarcastic reply: "how many millions do you need?"
The scammers' response? "You're fired"
What a cheeky fraudster! That said, I'm sure he has pulled it off before.