My institution recently came across a situation in which an individual who is developmentally disabled and a customer of ours is involved in a wire fraud scam. After putting all the pieces of the puzzle together (and calling the originator of a wire that we returned), it was determined that this was in fact one of the many online dating scams that exist today.
When conducting enhanced due diligence, we questioned this individual as to why the funds were being received, to which they were unable to provide answers, and then providing false information at one point. The twist to the plot is that this individual was accompanied by another individual each time they entered our institution, and this "accomplice" appeared to be "coaching" our customer into giving the answers. Through discussion with both of them, it was suspected that the account was being used as a money mule, and they were truly not the fraudsters, rather they were also involved in the online dating scheme in some capacity.
My question would be to ask whether or not there exists some sort of hotline for abuse of the developmentally disabled, similar to that of elder abuse. In both situations, it's essentially an individual that is being taken advantage of based off of their mental state, however based on the age of the individual involved in this scenario, the elder abuse laws would not apply. Unfortunately, this individual closed out their account prior to us confirming that it was what we suspected, and we're certain that this scheme will just continue at another FI. This just doesn't sit well with me, as I know that the individual doesn't know what's going on, and even the "accomplice" is more than likely just a money mule in the scheme.
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Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
-Albert Einstein
CAMS