Unusual Payment Instructions and Money Mule Recruitment
A request to route money through an unfamiliar wallet, cash machine, or personal account can change the risk of a transaction even when the story sounds ordinary. Fraudsters also recruit people to receive and forward funds, sometimes presenting the role as work or a favor. This guide connects the CFTC's warnings about payment instructions and unwitting money laundering. It helps readers evaluate what they are being asked to do with the money, not just who appears to be asking.
Adapted from public-domain educational material published by CFTC. Fynoptic has organized and edited the material and added introductory and practical guidance. Sources were reviewed on October 28, 2026; original publication dates, where available, are listed below.
Pause Before You Pay: Unusual Money Transfer Instructions May Signal Fraud
Scammers increasingly use crypto ATMs, gift cards, and unfamiliar apps to defraud victims through irreversible transactions that conceal their identities, often posing as legitimate entities and creating urgency to pressure victims, who are advised to pause, verify independently, avoid unusual payment methods, and report suspected fraud to authorities.
Scams involving crypto ATMs (also called Bitcoin ATMs or crypto kiosks) resulted in more than $388 million in reported losses in 2025, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center—a 58 percent increase over the prior year. Actual losses may be higher due to underreporting. Unlike a typical ATM, where cash can be deposited into or withdrawn from an account managed by the ATM’s user, cash deposited into a crypto ATM is converted into various forms of cryptocurrency and deposited into a specified crypto address, commonly called a crypto wallet. Scammers may instruct victims to withdraw cash from their bank account and deposit it into a crypto ATM using a specific crypto wallet address or QR code supplied by the scammer. The transfer is often immediate and irreversible, and detecting the wallet owner’s true identity can be difficult or even impossible.
Scammers may also seek payment via fake trading platforms, fraudulent mobile apps, gift cards, or by giving cash or precious metals to a courier. These payment methods similarly allow criminals to conceal their identities and extract money while limiting traceability.
Scammers often claim to be from a government agency, investment firm, utility company, or a company’s tech support. They often make unsolicited contact and use fear, urgency, promises of guaranteed wealth, and complicated instructions to coerce and confuse victims and prevent them from seeking help from a trustworthy source.
No government agency, legitimate financial institution, or reputable company will instruct you to move money using crypto ATMs, gift cards, or couriers. A request to move money through an unusual channel should be treated as a warning sign, especially when someone claiming to be a representative of a government agency, your bank, brokerage, or retirement account relays that your funds or your identity are in immediate danger.
Recognize the Red Flags
Be suspicious when someone:
- Claims to be from your bank, investment firm, a government agency, or tech support, especially if you experience a pop-up warning or an unsolicited email, text, or phone call.
- Creates urgency or fear, insisting you must act immediately to “protect” your money.
- Directs you to move your money, including withdrawing cash, liquidating investments, or sending payments via crypto ATMs, unfamiliar apps, QR codes, wire transfers, gift cards, or couriers.
- Controls the process by directing your deposits, staying on the phone with you during the transaction, instructing you to split up payments, or coaching you on what to say (or not say) to others.
- Seeks secrecy or access, demanding you keep the situation confidential or asking you to download software or allow remote access to your device.
Stop, Verify, Protect
Pause before withdrawing or transferring money. End the call or online conversation, then independently contact your bank, brokerage firm, government agency, or company using a verified telephone number or official website. Do not use links, telephone numbers, applications, or contact information supplied by the person making the demand.
Exercise caution when sending money to a crypto wallet address you do not control or have familiarity with. Avoid unknown software and never provide remote access to your device. If you have not created the crypto wallet address yourself and it has been provided to you, treat it with skepticism. Your transfer to an address cannot be reversed—no matter how large the value being sent—and you may be sending your value to an entity overseas. Talk with a trusted family member, friend, financial professional, or law enforcement officer before completing an unusual transaction, and keep in mind, bad actors frequently lie about their profession and identity.
Report suspected fraud immediately. Customers may submit a complaint to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at CFTC.gov/complaint and report internet-enabled fraud to the FBI at IC3.gov.
For additional information, review:
- Federal Trade Commission, Bitcoin ATMs: A Payment Portal for Scammers
- Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Notice on the Use of Convertible Virtual Currency Kiosks for Scam Payments and Other Illicit Activity
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Cryptocurrency Kiosk Complaint Data By State
Don’t Become an Unwitting Money Launderer
Criminal organizations are targeting students and people looking for easy stay-at-home income. The online offers say all you have to do is set up bank accounts, send or receive money, convert dollars to crypto-assets or vice-versa, or receive funds to buy merchandise and deliver the goods to a third-party. For your time and trouble, you get to keep some of the money you receive.
In reality, transnational criminal organizations use the recruits’ unsuspicious accounts to make it harder for law enforcement to trace the funds the criminals have stolen through fraud or other serious crimes such as human trafficking or illegal drug sales. The criminals call them “money mules” — people who, at someone else’s direction, receive and move assets. Law enforcement calls it money laundering, and it could land you in jail if it continues unreported. Your identity could also be reused by the criminals.
Besides job seekers who may believe offers to be “secret shoppers” or “payment processors” are legitimate, other people may think they are helping a friend through an urgent or difficult situation, but may actually be victims of a romance or friendship confidence scam. Relationship confidence scams, which the criminals call “pig butchering” frauds, fuel much of these vast and sophisticated money laundering networks.
What to look for
Off-ramping. One of the easiest ways for criminals to move money is via crypto-assets on a blockchain, such as Tether (USDT) on the Tron blockchain, or bitcoin. Meanwhile, law enforcement is getting better at tracing and seizing stolen assets. So, the criminals need to convert their tokens to dollars or “off-ramp” money from the blockchain. The criminals might send coins to a digital wallet and instruct you to move the money to your spot-market trading account, convert the crypto to dollars, and move the cash from your bank to another account.
On-ramping. Criminals could also want you to move dollars to the blockchain by accepting cash, using it to buy crypto-assets—sometimes at a bitcoin kiosk—and forward the crypto to another wallet.
Smurfing. In this situation, you might receive a large amount of crypto to your digital wallet or trading account and you are asked to send several smaller amounts to a list of wallet addresses.
Remember
- Moving money for illegal activities can lead to criminal and civil charges.
- If you are approached online and asked to move money, immediately end communications.
- If you have already received money or crypto assets from a person you met online, do not send it to anyone else. Notify your financial institution and consider changing accounts and wallet addresses, especially if you have provided any personally sensitive information about yourself, bank, or crypto-asset trading accounts.
- Immediately notify the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov, and contact your local FBI field office. You can also submit a tip or complaint at CFTC.gov/complaint.
Protecting the Public
The CFTC has participated in an international money mule initiative since 2023 and takes steps to identify and disrupt money mule activity related to fraud schemes that target market customers. Learn more about money mule scams and potential consequences.
This article was prepared by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Office of Customer Education and Outreach. It is provided for general informational purposes only and does not provide legal or investment advice to any individual or entity. Please consult with your own legal advisor before taking any action based on this information. This advisory references non-CFTC websites, and organizations. The CFTC cannot attest to the accuracy of information in those non-CFTC references.
Putting this into practice
Pause when a payment route is unusually complicated or when you are asked to pass someone else's funds onward. Verify the purpose and parties independently. Keeping a commission or following detailed instructions does not establish that the underlying funds or transaction are legitimate.