A girlfriend who never existed and fake friends. How Graham became a money mule

Australians are being scammed and used by criminal networks as money mules Tue 30 Jun 2026 at 5:05pm When Graham Guy died in 2025, he believed he had a long-term girlfriend and some good mates overseas. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The 65-year-old had become the victim of an elaborate romance scam, as he developed dementia in the final years of his life. Graham's former wife, Belinda Guy, who remained his close friend after they separated, told 7.30 he fell in love with a 'woman' he met online in 2022. He would communicate with "Michelle" online each day and believed she lived in the United States. "They never met in person … but he was infatuated, totally infatuated," Ms Guy told 7.30. "He'd bend over backwards for Michelle." "Michelle" quickly introduced Graham to a network of associates who regularly contacted him on social media and WhatsApp to ask expensive favours, including money for airfares, medical bills and gift cards. Ms Guy said he drained his savings, superannuation and fortnightly pension trying to help his so-called friends. "He was unwell, and I guess he was lonely … he was vulnerable,"she said. "I think he believed that they were real because he did have a good heart." In 2024, the requests took an unusual turn. An acquaintance of Michelle wanted to deposit $27,000 into Graham's bank account, claiming the money was to help an elderly relative. He was instructed to transfer the funds to an international account. But when he tried to move the money from his NAB account, the bank flagged the transaction as suspicious and blocked the payment. Graham had been tricked into engaging in criminal activity as a money mule. Ms Guy said he would have never knowingly participated in a crime. "He was law-abiding. If he knew that it was an illegal activity, he wouldn't do it," she told 7.30. Scammers becoming 'more ruthless and innovative' AFP Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson, who runs the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre, said a money mule is a person who is "drafted by a third party to utilise their bank account to transfer funds from one end to another". Criminal syndicates recruit mules to help move the proceeds of crime through the banking system. NAB group investigations executive Chris Sheehan told 7.30 the recruitment of scam victims as money mules is a "growing problem". "It's one [problem] across the industry we are talking about and have observed," he said. Mr Sheehan believes criminals are becoming "more ruthless and more innovative" in their attempts to attract mules, because it has become harder for them to set up fake accounts using stolen identities. "Banks have increased their controls to prevent people [from] using stolen identity or identity takeover to onboard as a mule, and the criminals have adapted to that," he said. "What they're now doing is trying to recruit real people who have their own real genuine identification documents because they know that's much harder for banks to stop at the onboarding phase." Two of Australia's big four banks, NAB and ANZ, have recently raised the alarm about a rise in money mule scams. Last year, NAB shut down 9,364 customer profiles due to mule concerns. ANZ flagged around 4,000 "high-risk" accounts for investigation between September 2025 and March 2026. About a third of ANZ customers who received fraudulent funds were international students or unemployed. Students targeted Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson said international students were among the most common targets for mule recruiters. "They get approached and told this is a legitimate exercise, and for a quick $500 we are happy to takeover your bank account and grab your identity documents before you go home," she said. Prospective buyers on social media marketplaces are also offering hundreds of dollars to rent or buy Australian bank accounts. Mules can be charged with money laundering offences, which attract significant penalties, including jail terms ranging from 12 months to life. This month, a 29-year-old man faced court in Melbourne after allegedly being used as a money mule. Police allege Alven Yuen was aware he received more than $50,000 in fraudulent funds, but he is not accused of knowing which alleged scam they came from. Through a Mandarin-speaking translator, Mr Yuen indicated to the court he intends to plead not guilty to negligently dealing with the proceeds of crime. Job 'ticked all the boxes' It's alleged at least some of the money in Mr Yuen's account was from scam victim Loveeta D'Souza. The Melbourne woman was conned into transferring more than $200,000 into mule accounts in 2022 after becoming the victim of a complex job scam while looking for extra work online. "I have three kids and my husband was working for all of us, which made me feel very guilty, I felt I needed to be part of this as well," Ms D'Souza told 7.30. "I came across this job that ticked all the boxes — work from home, was good enough pay for me." She believed she was working for a legitimate online shopping platform after confirming the company's name and ABN. Her role involved logging into an online portal to help sellers promote their products on the website. She was initially paid around $200 in commission, but before long, her supervisor told her she would need to invest her own money to continue making money. "She kept telling me I would get the money back … I kind of trusted them because I got paid twice,"Ms D'Souza said. "I kept things in my mind — they have an ABN, it's a big company … so it can't go wrong." She later filed a police report after realising she had been scammed. "It was the most painful moment of my life, because it was not me alone," Ms D'Souza said. "It was my whole entire family that was into this now." Ms D'Souza said she was reimbursed $6,000 by her bank as a courtesy, but she did not receive any compensation from the bank that had the money mule accounts Experts say most scams are operated from compounds in South-east Asia, where criminal networks are making record profits through increasingly sophisticated techniques. Detective Superintendent Andersson told 7.30 that artificial intelligence is fuelling the global scam environment. "It's looking a lot more sophisticated and larger and industrialised in scale," she said. "The scalability is getting off the charts." Mr Sheehan said it was often difficult for scam victims to get their money back because fraudulent funds rarely remain in mule accounts for long and the operators extract it quickly. "As soon as money leaves the victim's account and goes to a recipient account at another bank, the criminals will move that money as soon as they can," he said. "If the victim has made the payment themselves … the likelihood that they'll get their money back is really low." Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV