Commonly, mules are recruited with job advertisements for "payment processing agents", "money transfer agents", "local processors", and other similar titles; the real benefit to the criminals is not the work carried out by the mule, but that the criminals are distanced from the risky, visible transfer.
After deducting a relatively small payment for themselves, candidates are asked to accept funds and to forward them to a third party, via remote work.
[4] By using instant payment mechanisms such as Western Union, the mule allows the thief to transform a reversible and traceable transaction into an irreversible and untraceable one.
[5] If an innocent third party's bank details have been compromised, they can be used as a mule without their knowledge, something sometimes called "Cuckoo smurfing".
In 2010, The FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force, composed of Federal, State, and Local law enforcement, charged more than 37 defendants involved in a highly organized money mule scheme, facilitated by the Zeus Financial Trojan.