Reputable financial institutions have reportedly served as stations in the multistep money laundering process that transports funds from US scam victims to crime syndicates in Asia.
ProPublica reports that Asian crime syndicates behind pig butchering scams tap on the services of financial titans like Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, HSBC and Wells Fargo, along with many other U.S. and foreign lenders, to convert the proceeds of their illicit operation into crypto.
Pig butchering, a scheme in which scammers build a relationship with their targeted victims to financially exploit them, siphons some $44 billion per year. Chinese gangs that operate in prison-like compounds in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar often carry out this scam.
The report says that black market bank accounts are thriving because of this fraud, with Chinese-language channels on the messaging service platform Telegram offering to rent US bank accounts to pig butchering scammers.
The bad actors need the bank accounts to move stolen funds. Although fraudulent transactions now use cryptocurrency, the typical consumer does not own this asset, so many scams involve getting the victim to wire money through traditional banks. The swindlers receive the funds in their account, then convert them into crypto to send overseas. Later, they exchange the digital assets for standard currency.
In a statement to ProPublica, the American Bankers Association, which represents the industry, says banks cannot completely filter out scammers despite their efforts to stop fraud.
“With more than 140 million bank accounts opened every year bad actors can sometimes get through despite determined and ongoing efforts to stop them. They hide their true identities, exploit the good names and reputations of banks and other responsible companies, and abuse shell corporations to facilitate moving their ill-gotten gains away from their victims.”
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