Five alleged money mules have been indicted in a bank heist that netted the thieves almost $450,000 from a local-government bank account in California.
John L. Quinn II and Anthony Bobbitt, both of North Carolina, were indicted with three others on criminal charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy.
Quinn and Bobbitt are accused of allowing their U.S. bank accounts to be used to launder fraudulent money transfers to Lance Holt, Deago Smith and Jennifer Woodard, who were also charged. The case may be one of the first involving money mules, who have played a key role in hundreds of similar heists that have hit small businesses, organizations, schools and government agencies in the last few years, resulting in losses estimated to be in the millions.
Money mules are generally recruited by bank thieves through job advertisements or other means, and are told they are needed for a work-at-home project to help overseas companies transfer money quickly. It’s not always clear if the mules know that they’re helping to facilitate a crime, but security blogger Brian Krebs says that most of the mules he’s interviewed have been truly clueless about the nature of what they were doing, or needed the work badly to simply refrain from asking too many questions of their recruiters.
The U.S. attorney’s office in North Carolina, where the charges were filed, would not discuss details of the case, other than to say that the five indicted individuals all knowingly and intentionally conspired to commit the crimes.
According to the complaint (.pdf) in this case, the money was siphoned in May 2007 through a number of wire transfers from an account belonging to the city of Carson, California, at City National Bank. It was sent to bank accounts belonging to Quinn and Bobbitt, who then allegedly withdrew the money in cashier’s checks or electronically transferred it to other bank accounts, while keeping a portion for themselves.
The money transfers were initiated by someone who used valid login credentials to gain access to the city’s bank account. The credentials were siphoned from a laptop used by municipal treasurer Karen Avilla through spyware loaded on her computer, according to Computer World.
The five indicted individuals aren’t charged with hacking, so it’s likely someone else was responsible for the intrusion into Avilla’s computer.
The first transfer occurred on May 23, 2007, when an unauthorized electronic transfer of $90,500 was made from the city’s account to an account owned by suspect Quinn at the Branch Banking & Trust in Wilson, North Carolina. Quinn then allegedly transferred the money to an account owned by Woodard at the Fort Sill National Bank in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
The same day, Woodard allegedly withdrew $6,000 in cash from that account. The same day, at a branch in Spring Lake, North Carolina, Woodard allegedly withdrew an additional $8,000 in cash and obtained two $30,000 cashier’s checks payable to herself.
The next day, Woodard allegedly cashed one of the cashier’s checks and deposited the other one back into her account.
On May 24, a second unauthorized wire transfer of $358,500 was made from the Carson municipal account to a National City Bank account belonging to Holt in Detroit, Michigan. Holt then allegedly withdrew about $103,800 from the account.
The indictment doesn’t indicate if the money was then sent on to other conspirators in the United States or overseas.
The city was able to recover about $304,000 of the stolen money, according to Computer World. The city’s insurance provider reimbursed it an additional $100,000, but the city ultimately lost about $44,000 as a result of the theft.
The city blamed the bank for allowing the transfers to occur and has moved its account to a new bank. Now, every time a wire transfer is initiated, the bank sends out a message by e-mail, text and fax to Avilla and three other city employees to notify them.