Go and look up the concept of money mules. Fraudsters don't need to setup bank accounts, they either buy bank accounts off people for £50, or convince people to move the money on their behalf by claiming they're doing an "accounting" job that involves large money movements, and the mule will get paid a percentage.
Most people don't realise what these accounts are used for, or just don't care because they're paid enough to look the other way. Then stolen funds are quickly moved across dozens of banks, with the money being split and re-combined with potentially legitimate money. Eventually the administrative overhead of tracking the money gets so great that no one bank can be bothered to do anything about, and the police aren't interested in actually investigating. The end result is that once the stolen money if a dozen or so bank accounts away from the victim, it's extremely unlikely that anyone is actually going to trace the money to that account, effectively making the money clean.
You see ads on instagram offering to buy or borrow your bank account for £50... and when they're used for muling guess who it is that gets their account banned and then a CIFAS marker ensuring they can't bank anywhere else? The desperate kid who needed the money, not the actual criminals behind it.
Yet another reason for regulating advertising. Why are these platforms not held liable as accomplices? I can't think of any legitimate reason for an ad to buy/rent someone's bank account.
At least in my experience these aren’t official ads. It’s random sketchy people posting about “business opportunities” with stacks of cash or whatever.
Acting as a mule for money laundering is a crime. They are criminals. They might be young, but the majority of them know they are doing something wrong.
I'm not suggesting they aren't criminals. But there is a spectrum of criminality and I am suggesting they are considerably less so than the leaders of the fraud ring.
These ads are deliberately designed to prey on the desperate, unfortunate or the technically illiterate.
Some of them probably know exactly what they're doing and I have no sympathy, but some of them probably fall into the same category as people falling for Authorised Push Payment fraud.
Most people don't realise what these accounts are used for, or just don't care because they're paid enough to look the other way. Then stolen funds are quickly moved across dozens of banks, with the money being split and re-combined with potentially legitimate money. Eventually the administrative overhead of tracking the money gets so great that no one bank can be bothered to do anything about, and the police aren't interested in actually investigating. The end result is that once the stolen money if a dozen or so bank accounts away from the victim, it's extremely unlikely that anyone is actually going to trace the money to that account, effectively making the money clean.