Surfer taken to the launderers

by Sally Hyslop

May 5 , 2008

A few months ago, Peter (real name withheld) would have thought that a beautiful girl depositing thousands of dollars into his bank account was the stuff dreams were made of.

However, after exactly that has happened to him, and after he received a call from the Australian Federal Police, Peter views things a little differently.

The phone call, received a fortnight ago, informed him that girl of his dreams Natalia, whom he met through online dating site Lavalife, had used his bank account to launder money.

“I nearly fell over backwards,” Peter told eMU News.

In an emerging trend, there are loads of scammers in cyberspace who are desperate to deposit money into other people’s bank accounts. And the scammers will pay people hundreds of dollars a day for the privilege.

The problem is that the money is often from the arms or drug trades, or skimmed off credit cards.

According to Detective Sergeant Duncan Taylor, from the WA police computer crime division, simply allowing ‘hot’ money to pass through their bank accounts leaves people open to prosecution.

“We have charged and convicted West Australians for this,” Sgt Taylor said. “Money laundering carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment.”

Peter sais Natalia convinced him to hand over his bank account details after a month-and-a-half of talking every day.

“She rang me up,” he said.  “We talked almost every day... ,”

“It was all straight forward. She went through all the right channels... You just don’t think of these things, especially when she’s ringing you up and you’re talking so much.”

He said the fraud squad called him for an interview right after Natalia deposited $2440 in his bank account.

“I’m the second person (who banks) with the ANZ bank to be done for it,” Peter said.

Luckily for him, Peter didn’t touch the money and was not arrested for money laundering.