Western Union is not exempt from KYC requirements. Most agents of it, however, sound something like "the owner of your local bodega." They'll satisfy themselv

Western Union is not exempt from KYC requirements. Most agents of it, however, sound something like "the owner of your local bodega." They'll satisfy themselves of your identity, either via personal knowledge or asking to see an ID. They'll then ring up your transfer. The person on the other end of the transfer is "Some person in Jamaica." That doesn't automatically scream FRAUD unless you say "Lottery" -- the overwhelming majority of Americans wiring money to someone in Jamaica are, in fact, supporting family or friends there. Fraudsters also tend to get pretty decent about instructing their marks to structure payments to avoid the obvious controls, for example by using mules [+] or by striping a $5,000 transfer into multiple smaller transfers on different days to different recipients controlled by the same operation. This is explained to the mark as something like "Oh, different tax bureau than last time" but it's operationally to avoid having velocity checks tripped at WU. [ + ] Witting or unwitting co-conspirators who receive money in their own name and then forward it to the criminals, often for a cut of the profits.