UK FCA Finds 238,396 Suspected Money Mule Accounts Closed in 2025
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published new findings on money mule activity, reporting that regulated firms closed 238,396 suspected mule accounts in 2025. The figure was up from 233,269 in 2024 and 184,935 in 2023.
The findings come from an FCA survey of 35 regulated firms and an analysis of how fraud proceeds move through the financial system. Across 2023 to 2025, firms reported offboarding 656,600 customers for suspected money mule activity.
Criminal proceeds often pass through multiple mule accounts
The FCA said some accounts had been used repeatedly and across different fraud types, indicating established criminal infrastructure rather than isolated misuse. Its analysis found that fraud proceeds commonly moved through two to five mule accounts before criminals cashed out.
Money mule activity is a form of money laundering in which an account is used to receive or transfer criminal funds on behalf of others. The FCA said the movement of proceeds through chains of accounts makes stolen funds harder to trace and recover.
Retail banks account for most closures, while EMI activity increased
Retail banks and building societies accounted for 56.1% of suspected mule accounts closed in 2025, although their reported volume was 10.9% lower than in 2024. The FCA said the largest increase over the three-year period was among electronic money institutions (EMIs).
The regulator cautioned that higher offboarding volumes at EMIs, payment institutions and challenger banks do not necessarily mean money mules represent a larger share of those firms’ customers. The change may also reflect customer growth and improvements in firms’ ability to identify and act on suspected mule activity.
Personal customers represented 93.2% of suspected mule accounts closed in 2025. Business-account offboarding was 10% higher than in 2023 but 20.8% lower than in 2024. Challenger banks accounted for 50.1% of business accounts closed for suspected muling in 2025.
FCA identifies changes in the age profile
Customers aged 18 to 39 accounted for 71.9% of suspected money mules offboarded in 2025. The 26-to-39 age group represented the largest share, at 39.2%, followed by customers aged 18 to 25 at 32.8%.
The strongest increase was among older customers. Offboarding of customers aged 40 to 59 increased by 61.3% compared with 2023. Within that group, closures involving customers aged 40 to 49 rose 79.8% compared with 2023 and 44.7% compared with 2024.
Under-18s accounted for 3.7% of suspected mule accounts closed in 2025. The FCA also noted limitations in some demographic data, including an increasing proportion of records where gender was unknown, not collected or not disclosed.
Supervisory follow-up
The FCA said it is working with the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) to issue an alert to relevant firms with further details from its findings. It will also continue supervisory work on firms’ responses to evolving money mule threats.
The National Crime Agency estimates that more than £100 billion is laundered through the UK or UK corporate structures each year.
