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It's well documented that a lot of this money goes out of the country by transferring it to a 'mule' with a bank account in the UK, who think they are doing something innocuous. They transfer it to the scammers either via cryptocurrency (basically untraceable) or previously, via an international money transfer service such as Western Union. The latter is also pretty much untraceable. You can pick up money anywhere in the world from these services with some ID. They don't need your address or to really check you are who you say you are, they just want to make sure you have the same name as the one the sender referenced.

Unless the destination country, the destination Western Union office and the person who picked up the money are all willing and able to co-operate, law enforcement in the source country is pretty much stuck.




> doing something innocuous. They transfer it to the scammers either via cryptocurrency

Whoah. Do you mean there are people that think cryptocurrency is "inoccuous"? I mean, I know there are inoccuous uses; but if someone "official" tells you to use a cryptocurrency account, that is very definitely occuous.


Sorry for replying to self.

TIL: I have been spelling "innocuous" wrong since forever. It's apparently the negating prefix "in-", and the Latin word "nocere" (to harm).

So I should have quipped "that is very definitely nocuous". Or not quipped at all.




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