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50 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 1007 (2017)
The Money Mule: Its Discursive Construction and the Implications

handle is hein.journals/vantl50 and id is 1057 raw text is: The Money Mule: Its Discursive Construction and the Implications Rainer Hiulsse* ABSTRACT The proceeds of cybercrime are typically laundered by money mules-people used by criminal organizations to interrupt the financial paper trail by transfering money for the criminals. This Article analyzes the discursive construction of the money mule in documents of national and international anti-money laundering authorities such as Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), Europol, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). It shows how case study narratives, visualizations, and metaphors contribute to an understanding of the money mule as an innocent victim of organized crime networks from West Africa and Eastern Europe, supported by money remittance companies like Western Union. These constructions have several implications: First, they make awareness-raising campaigns the key policy response at home (i.e., in countries in the North and West). Second, they imply a policy reaction of playing tough with sovereigns on the margins of the law deemed abroad (i.e., countries in the South and East). And third, they direct blame and responsibility towards financial transmitters, but they let banks get away. * Rainer Hillsse is a Senior Lecturer at the Geschwister-Scholl Institute of Political Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universithit in Munich, Germany. His research focuses on issues of international politics such as money laundering, global governance, and the role of language in politics. Dr. Hillsse has published several articles on the Financial Action Task Force Against Money-Laundering (FATF). Thanks to comments on a previous version of this Article by participants in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law Symposium on Sovereign Conduct on the Margins of the Law held at Vanderbilt Law School on February 17, 2017. 1007

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