Australians have been urged not to be duped into signing up for a seemingly harmless side hustle that has roped in thousands of people. It might not sound that bad to rent out your bank account to someone, however, this is usually done for nefarious purposes.

A money mule is someone who receives illegally acquired money from someone, typically a scammer or hacker, and then transfers it to another account, sometimes overseas, to avoid it being traced and returned to the victim. Mules can be paid between $200 to $500, plus commissions of up to 10 per cent, for each completed transfer.

But the Australian Banking Association (ABA) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) are cracking down on this trend.

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The money mule problem in Australia is growing

There were 9,000 mule accounts detected in the 2023-24 financial year, and nearly 13,000 were discovered in the 2024-25 financial year.

A Sydney woman was jailed in April this year after authorities found she had rented out 10 bank accounts to an overseas money laundering syndicate.

After a thorough investigation, they found those accounts had been used to launder nearly $4 million worth of criminal funds.

That money was eventually transferred overseas, which made it much harder for Australian police and banks to retrieve it.

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How does the money mule system work?

Criminals will usually reach out to unsuspecting people on social media, messaging or gaming platforms, chat forums, online advertisements and even in face-to-face meetings.

They'll lure them in with promises of easy money without having to lift a finger and claim that everything they're doing is above board.

All they need is access to your bank account and you'll get to rake in the money, they'll claim.

The AFP said these offers will typically present themselves in three distinct ways:

• Employment scams: This is designed to exploit job seekers. Applicants are asked to have an Australian bank account to transfer funds and are promised a commission for their work.

• Threat scams: Scammers might contact people and threaten to impose criminal charges or arrest unless they agree to transfer and receive funds into their bank account

• Romance scams: This is a much longer-term scheme, where scammers build relationships with people online and then ask them to transfer money to other accounts