Earn Money Working at Home
Process Payroll for $$$

Some work at home offers are just scams. In this example, unwilling participants who thought they were processing payroll for an international company were actually money mules. Funds went into an account, and back out. The money was actually being laundered. It was stolen.

Alexey Mineev, of Hampton, New Hampshire recently plead guilty to money laundering charges. He set up drop accounts that were used to receive and send monies that were stolen from brokerage accounts. He could be sentenced to two years in prison, and a $40,000 fine. His plea agreement has him returning the $112,000 he made for his part in the scheme between July and December 2007.

Mineev, and his co-conspirators, Alexander Bobnev and Aleksey Volynskiy worked as a team. They would entice users to watch an online video that required a special codec to be installed, a screensaver or a security patch - which would actually be the delivery mechanism for a Trojan. They could then monitor the user looking for passwords and other logon information for brokerage or bank accounts. Screenshots could be reviewed that also showed the balance in the user's account. Bobnev would review the accounts and Mineev and Volynskiy would move the funds through drop accounts. Once the funds left the U.S. they would be virtually impossible to recover.

Anyone taking on work at home needs to review the employer thoroughly so as to not be a part of a fraud like this. "Money mules" using these drop accounts are not new, and they are not going away any time soon, not as long as some people want to steal, and others drop their cyber-guards.