A group of Twitch streamers has apparently uncovered a money laundering ring. According to the report, around 9.8 million US dollars were laundered via the streaming platform in Turkey. The findings come from a leak in which hackers:inside already captured numerous data in October 2021.
Back in October 2021, the streaming platform Twitch was hacked. Cyber criminals captured over 100 gigabytes of data at that time and subsequently published it.
The so-called Twitch leak reveals the earnings of numerous streamers. The hackers:innern also leaked countless private user data and secret source codes.
A group of streamers of Turkish origin then took a closer look at the published data. They noticed that numerous streamers with only a few followers had generated revenues in the mid-double digits.
According to a report by the British news agency Middle East Eye, the payments were made by cybercriminals. They wanted to launder their money with the help of Twitch’s micropayment system Cheering.
Internet money laundering: $9.8 million laundered via Twitch in Turkey
The fraudsters are said to have made illegal arrangements with the streamers. They are said to have used stolen credit cards to buy Twitch bits, the digital currency of the streaming platform, via cheering. They then sent larger amounts of digital currency to the account operators.
In accordance with the agreement, they in turn transferred 80 percent of the amounts back to the criminals’ real bank accounts. In return, they were allowed to keep the remaining 20 percent.
In Turkey alone, the criminals are said to have laundered around 9.8 million US dollars via Twitch in this way. In the past two years alone, around 2,400 Twitch users are said to have been involved in the schemes.
Twitch streamer publishes chat history with fraudster
The group of Twitch users who uncovered the incident includes Grimnax, a streamer of Turkish origin. Via Twitter, he recently published a chat history with one of the scammers who made him such an offer to launder money.
Grimnax was also supposed to be able to keep 20 percent of the amounts transferred. However, he presumably did not take up the offer. Meanwhile, Twitch told Middle East Eye that the platform had already taken action against 150 streamers.
The platform operators assure their community that they would not hesitate to take action against further violations. But according to Twitch user Grimnax, such machinations have been taking place for years. He wants to make people believe how extensive the fraud is – and that it is not only taking place in Turkey, but worldwide.
