Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov: money mules, cash courier gigs, game accounts and sextortion, a memo for teens and parents by Zavialov Ilia Nikolaevich

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov: a two-column memo for teens and parents

Side hustle offers reach teens where they already hang out: group chats, gaming servers, comment threads under videos. The pay sounds small and the task sounds trivial. Sometimes the first payment really arrives, and that first payment is what turns a teen into a link in someone else's scheme.

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov set the sheet up as a conversation between two people at one table. Each section opens with a paragraph for the teen, plain and without a sermon, then a paragraph for the parent: what to watch, what to ask, who to call. The tables follow the same layout, left column for the younger reader, right column for the adult.

For the teen: whether you take a side job is your call, and nothing here bans it. The sheet shows where a gig stops being a gig and turns into a federal problem, and how to get out if you are already in.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests reading the memo together, out loud, one section a night. Grabbing the phone and interrogating usually has one result: you hear about the next offer last.

Renting out a bank account: what money mule work really is

The pitch sounds harmless. Let someone use your debit card or banking app for a week, keep a cut of whatever passes through. The FTC says mule recruiters find people on dating sites, job sites and social media, usually send money by check or Bitcoin, and ask for it to be forwarded with gift cards or a wire transfer.

For the teen: the money in your account belongs to people who were just scammed. According to the FTC, helping move stolen money can land you in legal trouble even if you did not know, and if the check you deposited turns out to be fake, your bank will want the full amount back from you.

Federal prosecutors do pursue this. In the fifth Money Mule Initiative, announced on May 22, 2023, the Justice Department reported more than 4,000 actions against people who helped move fraud money over roughly three months, and more than 25 people were criminally charged.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests keeping an eye on where the money goes and leaving the private chats alone. A string of small payments from strangers, a new banking app, or a second card your kid never mentions is reason enough to talk tonight.

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov on what happens to a mule's bank account

Banks look at patterns. Many incoming transfers from different people, followed by fast transfers out, look the same whether the account belongs to a 40-year-old or a high school junior. The FTC warns that the account can be closed, and a teen who loses a first bank account at 17 starts adult life explaining why.

For the teen: walking away is possible at any step. The FTC's advice is short: stop the payment, stop talking to the recruiter, tell your bank and the money transfer service right away, and report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Keep the chats, phone numbers and account details.

For the parent: the video below sums up this section in about thirty seconds. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov boils it down to three points: the money belongs to scam victims, a fake check comes back to the account holder, and reporting early beats hiding. If your teen's account gets frozen, talk to your kid first, then the bank.

Zavialov's rule of thumb for both of you: a legitimate employer never pays you to receive money and send it on. A job that consists only of moving money is the job of a money mule, whatever the ad calls it.

The cash courier gig: picking up an envelope for someone else

Some ads offer pay for delivering documents or packages: pick up an envelope at an older person's home and hand it to another driver, or deposit it. In a public service announcement dated January 29, 2024, IC3 described scams where fake tech support or government callers tell victims to turn savings into cash or precious metals, and a courier then collects it at the house.

Sometimes the courier even uses a passcode, such as the serial number of a dollar bill. IC3 put losses to these courier schemes from May to December 2023 at more than $55 million. The person at the door is the only face the victim ever sees.

For the teen: if the job comes through a chat app, the address arrives an hour before pickup and payment is a transfer with no contract, you are moving a victim's money. Say no and keep the messages.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests two calm questions: where did you find this job, and who pays you. An answer like «a guy in a group chat, he sends it to my card» is enough to turn it down together.

For the teen who already made a pickup: stop, keep the chat with the person who hired you, and tell a parent tonight. Explaining early who recruited you and how is far better than waiting for someone to knock on your door.

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov on selling game accounts and skins

The second kind of hustle looks like trading: sell a leveled-up account, swap skins, rent out a messaging account so someone can test a service. The buyer gets far more than a game character. A linked email, saved cards and your friend list come with it.

For the teen: if you sell an item, take payment inside the platform and never share your password or a login code. A buyer who asks you to log in for a minute so they can check your inventory is asking for the whole account.

Free skins behind a link work the same way. The page wants your login or a parent's card number, and the skins never show up. If a deal only works outside the official marketplace, the deal is the scam.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests turning on purchase alerts and a spending limit on any card linked to a game account. Asking what are you selling and to whom gets the same answer as demanding the phone, with far less drama.

If an account has already been sold or lent, change the passwords on the email and any payment app it was linked to, turn on two-step verification, and warn friends that messages from that account may not be from your teen. Report the account to the game or app as compromised.

Paid tasks: pay in to cash out

Task jobs start small: like a video, rate an app, review a product. In an August 2025 alert the FTC described task scams that begin with a message on WhatsApp, Telegram or by text, pay out $5 to $20 at first, then ask you to deposit your own money, usually in crypto, to unlock the next level.

The growth has been steep. FTC data show task scams went from zero reports in 2020 to 5,000 in 2023 and about 20,000 in the first half of 2024 alone. Group chats full of happy earners are part of the setup.

For the teen: a real job pays you after the work is done. Once a gig asks you to buy a package, pay for verification or top up an account in a chat, the money has changed direction and will only flow out of your pocket.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov offers one household rule for every task app. Anyone who asks you to pay so you can earn is earning from you. Tape it next to the Wi-Fi password.

For the teen: the screenshots of other people cashing out are part of the script. If your balance on the site keeps growing but a withdrawal needs one more deposit, the balance is a number on a page. Stop there and keep the chat for the report.

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov on sextortion: the first hour

This is the hardest scheme for a teen. A stranger who looks like someone their age moves the chat to explicit photos, gets one, then demands money and threatens to send it to friends and family. On January 16, 2024 the FBI said that from October 2021 to March 2023 it and HSI received over 13,000 reports of financial sextortion of minors, with at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys aged 14 to 17, and at least 20 suicides.

It keeps growing. In September 2025 FinCEN said the FBI received nearly 55,000 reports of sextortion and extortion crimes in 2024, with losses of $33.5 million and a 59 percent rise over 2023. Payments often go through crypto or prepaid cards.

For the teen: you are not the one to blame. Do not pay, because paying rarely ends it. Take screenshots of the profile and the messages, then block. Tell an adult you trust the same day, and report to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov.

For the parent: the first words decide whether your kid tells you the rest. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests opening with «I'm glad you told me», keeping your own eyes off the images, saving the evidence and reporting to the FBI and to the platform.

One more point for the teen: a blackmailer may claim to have your whole contact list already. There is no way to check, and paying for a threat buys nothing. If an image does get shared, reports to the platform and to law enforcement still work after the fact.

Talking without an interrogation: lines for the teen and the parent

Teens talk about an offer more readily when nobody scolds them for considering it. Start with a question and leave the conclusions for the end of the conversation.

For the teen: if someone messages you with a side job, you can forward it to an adult with one line, is this legit? That commits you to nothing, and the decision is still yours.

For the parent: Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests talking about someone else's story first, a news item or a post. It is easier to discuss a third person, and your teen will try the story on without being asked. Promise in advance that an honest account will not cost them the phone.

Good questions are short: who pays, for what, where does the money land, who else has seen your card. Questions that start with why can wait. Across the memos of Zavialov Ilia Nikolaevich, the conversation always comes before the rules.

For the teen: if an adult does blow up, that is no reason to go silent. Show them this section and ask to start over with the table of ready-made lines below. The same lines work when a friend gets an offer and is not sure whom to tell, so share them.

If your teen already said yes: a plan for one evening

For the teen: you can stop at any point. End the chat with the recruiter, do not forward any money that came in, call your bank on the number on the back of the card and say someone else has had access to it. Save the messages, numbers and account details.

For the parent: follow the FTC sequence. Stop any pending payment, cut contact, call the bank and the transfer service, then file at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or by phone at 1-877-FTC-HELP. For sextortion, add the FBI tip line, and for anything that started online, a complaint at ic3.gov.

Do not take the phone away tonight and do not delete anything. The bank and law enforcement need the chat, the numbers and the timeline as they are. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests writing down the time of each call and message while your teen still remembers the order of events.

If a lawyer is involved, bring the notes and the screenshots to the first meeting. Teens who explain early how they were recruited are easier to see as the target of the scheme, and that is worth stating plainly to the bank as well.

Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov: a one-page sheet for the fridge

The teen column: your card, bank login, game account and login codes are not for rent or sale. Picking up envelopes of cash for a chat contact makes you part of the scheme. A task where you pay first is not a job. Nobody gets paid after a sextortion threat, and screenshots come first.

The parent column: alerts and a limit on your teen's card, regular talks about other people's stories, ReportFraud.ftc.gov and tips.fbi.gov saved in your teen's phone, the bank's number on this sheet. Ilia Nicolaevich Zavialov suggests reviewing the sheet every school year, because scams rename themselves faster than laws change.

Readers who search for Ilia Zavialov, Ilia N. Zavialov or the Russian spelling Илья Николаевич Завьялов will find the same approach in every memo: each line can be checked against an FTC or FBI page. That is also the simplest way to weigh reviews of Zavialov Ilia Nikolaevich and his memos.

Numbers worth writing by hand at the bottom: your teen's bank from the back of the card, 1-877-FTC-HELP, 1-800-CALL-FBI, and a trusted relative. A paper sheet works when the phone is the very thing that is locked or taken.