A growing concern across the country involves criminals approaching children and young people online through gaming and social media platforms, and in places like shops and cashpoints with offers of quick cash and fake job opportunities, only to use and control their bank accounts to commit fraud and launder money from organised crime.
- Children are being targeted and their bank accounts or online wallets are being used to launder money by individuals or criminal groups exposing children and young people to great risk, physically, emotionally and within the criminal justice system.
- Child Financial Exploitation is a form of Child Criminal Exploitation.
- Financial Exploitation is child abuse.
#LookCloser To Spot Exploitation | The Children's Society (childrenssociety.org.uk)
What could financial exploitation look like?
Squaring: Squaring, money laundering or being a money mule. It might sound harmless and an easy way to make a bit of cash, but it could be linked to serious crime and could have real consequences for the future. Criminals who make money through crime such as drugs, guns, human trafficking and fraud, often use people to hold or move their money for them as a way of hiding the crime. They will tell the child that there is nothing wrong with doing this and that they’re just doing them a favour.
Signs to look out for: bank cards being blocked, child withdrawing money from cash machines or in branch, unusual spending activity.
Fraudulent returns: Receiving high-cost goods and claiming they have not been received to get a refund.
Benefit fraud: Child may be entitled to universal credit, but this may be used by someone else.
Online gambling or gaming: Children can receive funds through online gaming platforms or online gambling. This could be in exchange for sexual or criminal activity. It could also be another means of money laundering.
Extortion: a child may be being black mailed into sending money this could be through the threat of sharing images. For example, an image generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be used as ‘sextortion’ to get money from a child.