Donations allegedly used to launder money from stolen credit cards
In a serious of coordinated raids, Turkish police have detained 40 people suspected of involvement with a money laundering ring which allegedly used Twitch for money laundering. Supposedly they were using stolen credit card info to buy Bits (Twitch’s virtuacurrency), which they would then donate to Twitch streamers who had agreed to give money in return in exchange for keeping a portion for themselves. This first came to light following Twitch’s big data leak last year.
A campaign formed to clean up Turkish streaming, including a streamer named “Grinmax”. He posteda chatlogfrom when he was supposedly approached to join in. Unsurprisingly, Turkish authorities were interested too.
Apairofreportsfrom Turkey’s İhlas News Agency say that police carried out simultaneous raids in 11 places, nabbing 40 of their 44 suspects. While early reports estimated that the group had laundered around $10 million (£7m), İhlas say that they made a profit of around $1 million. Police seized electronics and documents, so perhaps new numbers will follow. And, y’know, I’m relying on machine-translated sources.
I suspect this is but the very tip of an iceberg of shady money being moved through gaming ecosystems. And hell, at times the vast sums of legitimate money moving through some of them feels shady enough.
