Tuesday's phpBB money laundering post posed a question regarding the forum's membership list — why are Canadians advertising their location on a forum promoting illegal activity?

Well, some of our steadfast readers did the legwork and located the answer.

Email Money Transfer (EMT):



Click here for a screenshot of the entire thread.

Here's another thread:



Very interesting.

Interac Email Money Transfer service allows people to send money to anyone with an e-mail address and a bank account in Canada.

Folks with one of the "Big Five" Canadian banks can send EMTs. And any personal account holder in Canada can receive funds.

EMT funds are not frozen, so an EMT doesn't bounce, as the funds are guaranteed.

It does sound like something worth advertising to crooks desiring to launder money.

Sounds easy, right? Maybe not. Brian Krebs of Security Fix investigated similar sites last month.

When Krebs contacted the Supplier's ICQ address and attempted to play along, he was offered a certified check rather than an EMT. Certified checks can be faked — that sounds more like an advance fee fraud such as we wrote about on February 1st.

Either they didn't trust Krebs or it makes for a rather risk-free fraud for the bad guys. How many victims are going to complain to the bank if they're scammed while attempting to launder money?

Not many.

Click on the image below for Interac's EMT video: