The PhisherMan and The Mules | A Thriller Hacker Story

In the airport, before I am leaving to return to my home country after my beautiful vacation in Bali, the police take me in, and I am accused of money laundering.

I have never laundered money in my life, and I have no idea how people do this. All I know about it is that some people open up a business and record its revenue as coming from a legitimate place, while in reality it comes from illegal businesses, such as drugs, guns, or traffiking.

It all started when I received this weird-looking email that requested that I pay an amount for the hotel I booked for my vacation. I did pay, as the email seemed legitimate. And guess what? It wasn’t. I made the payment to someone else.

I contacted the hotel and the bank about this issue, and the bank disabled my card. Then I received an apology from the hotel about the issue that happened to me, as the email indeed came out of their server. They told me that they would give me a free 10 days, and I don’t have to pay anything (other than the money I already lost). This turned out to be perfect.

After I arrived at the hotel and while I was enjoying the sight of the great sea of Bali, someone from the hotel staff was wearing a formal dark suit. I suppose he is the manager. He came and spoke with me about what happened, and he told me that the hotel received your money and that it was a mistake on our end. Then he apologised to me again and wanted to return the money I spent. Now my vacation can truly be a free vacation! Then he gave me his personal mobile number to call him if I needed anything.

As they don’t pay back with cash, I had to give him my bank account details. The next day, when I opened my e-banking app, I found that the hotel returned to me more than 20 times the amount I spent! Can this get any better? However, unfortunately, as an ethical person, I should notify them and tell them that I received a heck lot amount of money from them.

I called the hotel manager and told him that I received more money than I should; he replied with respect, “Thank you so much for bringing our attention to this; we should find better employees for this hotel, haha. Please can you return the extra money amount to the bank account with these details?”, Me, feeling awkward from his replay, “Sure, okay”.

Then I spent the rest of the days without hearing anything from the manager, and when I went back to the airport to take the flight to my home country. The police accused me for money laundering and kept investigating with me for four days. I was scared, the communication was very difficult. I told them the whole story, and they seemed not to listen to me. It was the worst experience I have ever had

On the last day and before they released me, they caught the guy in the black suit, and when I saw him, I told them yes, that is the hotel manager, and actually nope, he wasn’t.

This guy has used me as a mule to launder his money after he tricked me into paying my money to him. And made a reservation for me in the hotel and told me that it is free. He had network-level access to the hotel’s data, and he was able to use their e-mail address. He had done the same trick multiple times without getting caught, but not this time, launderer!

This story is a work of fiction, and it doesn’t do anything with reality. However, it is indeed possible for this to happen in reality. I hope you enjoy the story and never forget to never transfer money to strangers by any method (even through buying gift cards).

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