CYBER criminals looking for new ways to launder their ill-gotten gains have latched onto traders of online goods and video gamers.

This is because these two groups of people have access to virtual assets which can be used to buy real goods across different countries - frequently without leaving a digital trail of transactions in the real money world.

Cyber crooks who hack into online banking accounts or credit card databases started out by laundering their heist through 'mule networks'.

They recruited users - the mules - to receive stolen money via online banking transfers.

These mules would be offered a fee to withdraw and then send the funds to the hacker via money orders.

This complicated trail foiled the authorities' attempts to track down the hacker, said security firm RSA's regional principal technical consultant Avi Rosen.

But over time, as knowledge of this modus operandi spread and online crime networks got smashed, it became harder for cyber wrongdoers to recruit mules. So cyber crooks, seeking new ways to launder their take, have now settled on people who buy and sell online and gamers, said Symantec's manager for systems engineering Ronnie Ng.

Online buyers and sellers usually maintain accounts with popular online payment systems like e-gold. Players of online games like EVE Online and Lineage own virtual assets in the form of 'gold' and 'swords', which have resale value in the real world.

Cyber crooks would thus offer to buy over their accounts or the contents of the account at a premium, then sell off the virtual products to others for cash or goods delivered to anonymous drop-off points like pay-by-cash motels.

The result: A muddy digital trail which works like a mule network. The authorities around the world are on to this and are clamping down: e-gold was the target of a United States Secret Service sting operation which saw its founder jailed.

Please read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.

chuahh@sph.com.sg