Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Authorised Push Payments Fraud: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Justin Kelly:
I will ask Mr. Cryan to comment as he deals with it on an operational level but I also have a few comments. The message we have been trying to get across is, as the Deputy rightly said, it is a criminal offence. It is money laundering. You can go to prison. You will have extreme difficulty ever opening a bank account again after this. Many people do not realise that sometimes there is never a payment made. It is a promise of a payment if you do something and, if you let someone use your bank account, there will a payment. Often, there is never a payment made. We have also seen cases in which it goes from the online world to the real world. It goes from wanting someone to do something with the account to wanting the person to cash out the account. It is not just about transferring money. It is going to the machine, taking the cash out and physically meeting someone. That brings it to a whole other level whereas people think it is just moving money around. We have also seen people who have not done what they were told being threatened with violence. Those are the types of messages we would like to get out. The number of money mules - I would not like publicly to put a figure on it - is significantly higher than the number the Deputy referred to. I will ask Mr. Cryan, who deals with it at an operational level, to talk about the message he would give.