In November of last year, France’s interior and justice ministers gathered in Marseilles to declare war on drug trafficking and organized crime. The announcement came amid an explosion in drug-related violence in the country, which has spread in recent years from France’s large cities to its small towns. Drug-related violence and murders in France rose by 38% between 2022 and 2023, leading to the creation of the term “narcohomicide.” According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) cocaine consumption in France doubled between 2022 and 2023, ranking France seventh in Europe for consumption. French authorities also seized 47 tons of cocaine in 2024 – double what they confiscated the year before, and that’s with French authorities reportedly inspecting less than 5% of incoming shipments at French ports, suggesting massive quantities of drugs entering the country illegally.
A 2024 report from the French senate estimates the value of the illicit drug trade in the country at €3.5 to €6 billion. Those kinds of sums, often in small bills, represent too much volume to sit in vacuum-sealed bags or plastic-wrapped pallets of cash. Since physical currency is vulnerable to theft and degradation, the groups selling these drugs must launder their earnings.
Mules to realize profits
Mule accounts within legitimate financial institutions form the financial foundation of organized crime. Criminal groups move the proceeds of their illicit activities through sprawling networks of these accounts, obscuring transaction trails, creating complex and multi-layered transfers, and avoiding triggering anti-money laundering (AML) system alerts by keeping the transaction sizes small, making it extremely difficult for law enforcement to identify and trace the origins of this money before it disappears.
Unlike traditional fraud techniques that focus on identity theft or unauthorized access, mule account activity leverages the legitimacy of real bank accounts to facilitate money laundering, which, again, makes detection much harder. Mule accounts blend in with normal banking activity. Unlike a clearly fraudulent transaction that may raise immediate red flags, transfers through mule accounts often appear as routine peer-to-peer payments.
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, France ranks 58th out of 193 countries in organized crime activity, ninth of 44 in Europe, and first among 11 Western European nations – with higher rankings correlating with higher rates of criminality. In its 2024 cybercrime report, France’s Ministry of the Interior’s cybercrime command highlights the connection between organized crime and money laundering, which we expand upon in our 2025 Digital Banking Fraud Trends in France report.
Money laundering costs banks and society
Mule accounts compromise banking security, erode consumer trust, and expose financial institutions to greater regulatory and financial risks. While banks tend to focus on spotting fraudulent transactions, they often underestimate the systemic threat posed by mule networks, which serve as critical infrastructure for financial crime.
Beyond financial losses, banks risk severe reputational damage if they fail to stop mule account activity. The perception that a bank is vulnerable to fraud undermines customer confidence, leading to client attrition, heightened regulatory scrutiny, and eventually legal consequences. According to a recent FCA study in the UK, financial institutions that fail to proactively monitor mule accounts may soon face tougher regulatory penalties.
For society at large, the cost of inaction on mule accounts is equally significant. These networks are essential to organized crime operations, providing the financial infrastructure for money laundering tied to drug trafficking, human trafficking, and cyberfraud. Interpol sees mule accounts as a key component in terrorist financing, enabling illicit funds to move quietly and making it extremely difficult for authorities to trace their origins.
Despite increased crackdowns, mule recruitment remains rampant, with fraudsters using increasingly sophisticated methods to lure new mules into their networks. One common tactic for this recruitment involves fake job offers on social media, promising easy money in exchange for processing financial transactions. In France, this type of scam is on the rise, with young people, students, and those in financially vulnerable situations targeted more frequently than others. Many of these mules believe they’re participating in legitimate financial activity, when in reality, they’re committing a crime.
Banks cannot solve this problem on their own. A more collaborative, data-driven approach is needed to prevent mule accounts from continuing to act as enablers of financial crime. Without stronger real-time fraud detection and better interbank collaboration, these money laundering networks will continue to thrive, fueling crime, undermining financial stability, and exposing banks to escalating legal and regulatory risk.
