How Banks Prevent Human Trafficking Scams & Protect Customers

Human trafficking impacts an estimated 50 million people worldwide, according to figures from the United Nations.¹ Advancements in generative AI, deepfakes, and voice cloning technology are making recruitment from human trafficking scams considerably more dangerous. 

Human trafficking-related scams are connected to organized crime, financial exploitation, and technology. This puts banks and financial institutions in a critical position to identify trafficking activity, help authorities stop and arrest traffickers, disrupt criminal networks, and protect vulnerable human beings from exploitation.

Taking these steps is about more than avoiding fines or investigations. It’s about stopping a significant modern tragedy and taking important steps to save real people from devastating harm. In this article, we’ll explore the schemes criminals use to trap victims into human trafficking, regulations for banks and financial institutions to follow to report and detect illegal activities, and how banks can use technology to uncover subtle patterns linked to trafficking.

Key Takeaways

• Roughly 50 million people worldwide are affected by human trafficking, according to data from the United Nations.¹
• The International Labour Organization estimates 27.6 million people worldwide are trapped in forced labor.²
• Criminals use fake job offers, manipulation, or force to recruit people into human trafficking activity, with many victims afraid or unable to come forward.
• Banks must utilize payment monitoring, network and visual link analysis, and advanced AI to uncover and disrupt human trafficking networks operating in legitimate banking services.

What Are Human Trafficking-Related Scams?

Human trafficking-related scams are schemes in which criminals use deception, coercion, or physical force to exploit people for indentured labor, sexual exploitation, or to take part in criminal activity for the criminals’ financial gain. 

According to the most recent data from the International Labour Organization:

• 27.6 million people worldwide are trapped in forced labor.
• An estimated 22 million people are trapped in forced marriages.
• $236 billion is generated from illegal profits annually.²

Victims may feel scared or uncertain about asking for help or coming forward, fearing getting in trouble with the law or backlash from their captors. These social stigmas work in traffickers’ favor, allowing trafficking activity to often go unseen.

Common Techniques Used by Human Traffickers 

Criminals use a wide range of deceptive tactics to recruit human trafficking victims. Here, we break down some of the most common methods employed by criminals.

Fake Employment or Recruitment Offers

Traffickers advertise fake “jobs” promising unsuspecting targets a chance at a high-paying job with a promising career in a new city or even abroad. Believing the offer to be legitimate, victims accept the “job offer” and leave their homes for the opportunity. However, upon arrival, their cell phones and documents are confiscated, and they are relocated to unknown locations. Their captors force them to work in “customer service’ or “investment” centers where they scam or recruit other targets.

Online Grooming

Using social media, SMS, or dating platforms, criminals build a long-term engagement with victims based on trust. Once their victim trusts them enough, they manipulate them into sexual exploitation (“sexploitation”) for their own gain.

Pig Butchering

In pig butchering scams, criminals build up trust over a period of time to both solidify trust with the victim and allow time for their financial assets to grow (like fattening a pig before slaughter). Some victims may be forced to manage wallets, accept payments into their bank accounts, or cash out funds as part of their servitude. A recent University of Texas at Austin study found victims worldwide lost $75 billion to pig butchering scams over four years.³ 

Layered Money Movement and Money Mule Networks

Discovery is a trafficker’s worst nightmare. That’s why they often use networks of money mule accounts (either knowingly or unknowingly) to hide the source of their funds. These accounts are used to receive, layer, and move their illicit profits, making detection much more difficult, especially when funds move across borders. 

“We tend to think of mules as hardened criminals. But there’s a slightly softer side of how they come to be involved, and actually, often many mules are victims in some way.” — Andy Renshaw, SVP of Product Strategy and Management, Feedzai

Why Human Trafficking Scams are Important for Banks

Human trafficking represents a sizable share of the criminal economy, where profits are funneled into the legitimate banking system. Banks that are found to harbor criminal activities funded by human trafficking risk multiple consequences for AML violations. These consequences can include investigations, heavy fines, and damaged public reputations.

However, the real damage is not from investigations, fines, or public backlash. Human trafficking is more than a compliance issue: it’s a crime against people. Allowing or missing activity linked to these crimes means banks are missing a chance to identify a serious threat and help real people in danger.

Global Human Trafficking Regulations

Around the world, regulators are increasingly raising expectations on how financial institutions are expected to tackle human trafficking and the flow of illicit money. These shifts in regulations are setting higher expectations on risk assessment, monitoring, and reporting transactions that may be linked to trafficking activity.

• United States: In the US, a 2023 FinCEN directive requires FIs to increase vigilance on activity related to human trafficking.⁴ When filing a suspicious activity report (SAR), financial institutions are required to specifically indicate on the report if a transaction is linked to human trafficking. 
• European Union: Recent data from the Council of Europe (COE) indicates that revenues from human trafficking was as high as €188 billion.⁵ COE recently issued guidance on how financial institutions can address tracing, freezing, and confiscating trafficked funds. 
• Global regulations: The global regulatory agency, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), has increased its scrutiny of virtual currency assets as “predicates” to other serious offenses, including money laundering, terrorist financing, drugs, and human trafficking scams. FATF encourages banks and states to include trafficking typologies into their AML/CFT frameworks to monitor if digital money is being abused for money laundering purposes.⁶

Around the world, regulators are making it clear: following the money is now central to the fight against human trafficking. From FinCEN alerts to EU reforms and international standards, banks are expected to play a key role in stopping human trafficking and the financial activity that enables it.

Human Trafficking Red Flags for Banks to Monitor

For banks to uncover human trafficking, it’s going to take more than looking at a single transaction at a given point in time. It’s about connecting different points in a user’s “story” that the data is revealing, indicating something unsettling is underway. 

Banks and FIs must watch for the following red flags to uncover human trafficking activity.

Unusual Customer Behavior and Interactions

Be mindful of in-person customers who appear to be under the sway of another person. They might avoid eye contact, allow someone else to speak for them, or hold their ID, all signs that they are at risk. Another warning is a third party who insists on remaining with the customer (who appears confused, fearful, or distraught) if they are asked to explain an unusual transaction.

Suspicious Transaction Patterns and Merchant Usage

Watch for red flags such as multiple customers using the same address, phone number, or email. Be especially mindful of multiple personal identifiers linked to risky business accounts such as adult services, escort advertising, or suspicious recruitment sites. Multiple low-value payments for low-cost properties, travel, fast food, and logistics that don’t align with a customer’s stated profile may indicate that trafficking activity is underway.

Geographic and Channel Anomalies

Check for sudden spikes in cross-border transfers to or from known trafficking corridors. Activity involving high-risk sectors or jurisdictions should get a closer review. Frequent use of cash deposits followed by rapid outgoing transfers or the sudden usage of virtual assets by customers should heighten concern.

Steps Banks Can Take to Prevent Human Trafficking-related Scams

Traffickers rely on legitimate banking infrastructure to move money, pay for transport, and hide their profits. To fight back, banks must take steps to embed protocols to identify potential trafficking activity and add processes to help respond as quickly as possible.

Embed Trafficking Response Into Risk Assessment and Policy

Banks should explicitly recognize trafficking-related scams in enterprise-wide risk assessments. This includes fusing trafficking risk signals across AML, fraud, and sanctions frameworks. Clear internal policies should define roles, escalation paths, and when to involve law enforcement or community services organizations to support potential victims.

Strengthen Frontline and Back-office Training

Staff in branches, contact centers, and digital support teams need tailored training that blends real trafficking scenarios with specific red flags and scripts for safe questioning. Analytic teams should understand how trafficking typologies translate into models, rules, and network views so that alerts are interpreted through a victim-centric lens.

Deepen Partnerships and Information Sharing

Collaboration is key to stopping fraud and financial crime, and the human trafficking activity that thrives in these ecosystems. Disrupting human trafficking networks depends on collaboration with law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or support organizations to help survivors. Embrace federated learning and network intelligence practices to learn how other organizations have identified trafficking activity. These details will be essential to refine detection and add context to SARs.

“As banks embrace faster innovations and criminals launch more sophisticated AI-powered schemes, AML programs must modernize quickly to keep up with technology that is reshaping both crime and compliance.” — Karin Yuklea, AML Subject Matter Expert, Feedzai

How Technology, Analytics Detects Human Trafficking Patterns

Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated tech to stay hidden. Banks need to be a few steps ahead. Real-time data empowers banks to protect potential victims and uncover trafficking warning signs earlier.

Focus on Inbound Payment Monitoring

Scams and fraud fuel larger criminal enterprises. Profits from human trafficking and other crimes are often laundered through networks of mule accounts. By monitoring inbound payments, banks can detect this illicit money when it enters the system, flagging money mule activity and stopping the money laundering process that sustains human trafficking and exploitation.

Network and Visual Link Analysis

Trafficking rarely involves a single account. Instead, it’s a networked crime spanning multiple accounts and players. Fighting back requires a graph-based analysis to bring shared attributes and transaction flows between seemingly unrelated customers to light. Visual link analysis helps investigators quickly see clusters tied to high‑risk merchants, addresses, or digital identifiers and prioritize the most harmful nodes.

Advanced AI and Cross‑channel Monitoring

Machine learning models trained on survivor‑informed typologies, SAR feedback, and open‑source intelligence can identify critical risk signals. Integrating data across cards, accounts, payments, and virtual assets enables banks to follow the full lifecycle of funds connected to human trafficking scams and intervene earlier.

The fight against human trafficking won’t be won by a single bank. It requires a mental and cultural shift from viewing financial crime as a series of numbers to seeing the human lives those figures represent. By collaborating and sharing critical intelligence, all of us can turn the financial system into a shield to safeguard the vulnerable.

Additional Resources

• Blog: The Future of AML Compliance: Strategic Predictions for 2026
• Report: Turn AML Compliance 
into Competitive Advantage with AI
• Webinar: Predictions for 2026: Scams, AI, and Fintech
• Solution: Anti-Money Laundering Solution