New resources provide enterprise-wide view of hidden costs
NEW YORK (April 14, 2026) — Today, The Knoble and BioCatch announced the launch of a new tool to help financial institutions more accurately determine the real cost of money mule activity. The model assesses the hidden costs of money laundering across operations, suspicious activity report (SAR) filing, account maintenance, and other business impacts. The announcement comes days after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed a new rule that would overhaul anti-money laundering efforts in the U.S., shifting financial institutions away from check-the-box-compliance toward risk-based systems.
The Knoble is a network of financial institutions, technology companies, and public sector partners working together to prevent human crime. BioCatch works with hundreds of financial institutions in more than 20 different countries to prevent fraud and financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior.
“Financial institutions today are being asked to manage money mule risk, too often without a clear way to measure it or a shared view of where it sits across the organization,” BioCatch Global Advisory Director for North America Sharell Barshishat said. “As a result, teams are left managing pieces of the problem, but struggle to align, prioritize, or take coordinated action. This new model will make the real impact of mule activity more visible, allowing institutions to better understand the risk, align across teams, and take action that disrupts the movement of illicit funds.”
Bad actors, increasingly working with or for organized criminal organizations, utilize mule accounts to realize the proceeds of fraud and scams activity. Globally, nearly every fraudulent or scam-related digital banking payment is first made to a mule account.
“Preventing, detecting, and responding to mule activity rarely sits within a single team.” Ian Mitchell, founder of The Knoble said. “Fraud teams see the transactions, anti-money laundering teams see patterns, compliance teams carry regulator expectations, and operations teams absorb the workload. Each team is accountable for part of a risk process, but no team owns the full picture. Without a coordinated program and shared view, the institution’s response remains fragmented and, too often, ineffective, opening the door for criminals to exploit the financial ecosystem to perpetrate all types of crimes, including human exploitation.”
Alongside the model, The Knoble is developing a practical guide to help institutions identify, scope, and manage mule risk across the organization. This initiative builds on ongoing work across The Knoble network to strengthen how the financial sector responds to scams and other forms of human crime. The goal is not just to provide tools, but to help institutions move toward a shared understanding of mule risk and a more coordinated, enterprise-wide response.
The work will be developed through industry working groups and will result in publicly available resources, including the cost model, guide, and supporting education. BioCatch is sponsoring this initiative and will support the development and promotion of the resulting resources. As with all of The Knoble initiatives, the focus remains on enabling the industry to work together and take meaningful action to stop human trafficking, financial scams, elder financial exploitation, and child sexual exploitation.
“This tool will help organizations understand the true cost of mule activity, connect patterns faster, and make more informed decisions,” The Knoble Project Manager Freddy Massimi said. “When you can see the full impact, you are better equipped to detect, prevent, and disrupt fraud before it grows.”
This work will be shaped by practitioners across the industry, reflecting how mule activity is experienced and managed inside financial institutions. Financial institutions and practitioners are invited to participate, contribute insights, and help build an approach the industry can use to better understand and address money mule risk.
These resources, including the cost model and guide, will be available on BioCatch.com and through The Knoble Network Member Center. You can sign up to get free access today at TheKnoble.com.
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About The Knoble:
Founded in 2019 by Ian Mitchell, we are a non-profit network of Financial Institutions, law enforcement, financial services, and NGOs passionate about fighting Human Crime — scams, human trafficking, child exploitation, and elder financial exploitation. Through thought-leadership projects and industry-leading initiatives, we are a network of professionals dedicated to making a difference. Join the fight today us today, apply at The Knoble.com, and receive free access to The Knoble Network Member Center, where like-minded professionals join to connect and participate in roundtables, forums, and more. Reach out to dave@theknoble.com if your organization is interested in becoming a corporate member or sponsoring an initiative.
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About BioCatch:
BioCatch prevents fraud and financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting more than 3,000 anonymized data points — keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, AI agent usage, jailbroken devices, and more — as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's AI and machine-learning models continuously assess both user intent and any signs of coercion or manipulation throughout every millisecond of every digital banking session, allowing banks to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate in real time. Insights drawn from across the entire network of BioCatch institutions further amplify the power and accuracy of that real-time risk-scoring. As of the end of Q1 2026, more than 30 of the world's largest 100 banks and 357 total financial institutions deploy BioCatch solutions, analyzing 18 billion user sessions per month and protecting more than 680 million accounts accessed from more than 1.7 billion devices around the world from fraud and financial crime.
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PR contacts:
Rose McQuitty
The Knoble, Communications Director
Rose@theknoble.com
Mac King
BioCatch director of global marketing communications
Mac.King@BioCatch.com