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Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

theguardian.com

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Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#71

Post by boxed »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #61
bookofjoe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. From what I've read, excellent quality fake USD go for a 50% — or more — discount from face value.

Just so I'm clear then. If I want to launder 100$ using this scheme. I setup a Spotify Account, to stream my 'Music'. Then I hire some bot farm to listen to my 'Music'. Then Spotify pays me the ad-revenue since so many people are listening to my music? So if I can hire the bot farm (and whatever other overhead expenses are needed), I just need to get $50 from ad-revenue to justify spending $100 on bots? It seems like…

I don't think it's ads, it's subscription revenue.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#72

Post by boxed »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #61
bookofjoe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. From what I've read, excellent quality fake USD go for a 50% — or more — discount from face value.

Just so I'm clear then. If I want to launder 100$ using this scheme. I setup a Spotify Account, to stream my 'Music'. Then I hire some bot farm to listen to my 'Music'. Then Spotify pays me the ad-revenue since so many people are listening to my music? So if I can hire the bot farm (and whatever other overhead expenses are needed), I just need to get $50 from ad-revenue to justify spending $100 on bots? It seems like…

> It seems like the bots would cost more? If bots are this cheap, I'd think more people would use them just to pump their numbers.

Who's to say they don't?

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#73

Post by lawlessone »

mjr00 wrote: post #39

Given my experience and knowledge of how Spotify deals with much-less nefarious uses of fake streams, I'm very skeptical of these claims. There's a significant (several month) delay between a Spotify stream and the artist getting a payout. (This is probably shorter if you're Taylor Swift, but the artist profiles involved here aren't.) During this time Spotify will indeed do some checks for stream legitimacy. It's not…

Considering you can just upload white noise and make money it's not entirely implausible.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-17/white-...

If the accounts listening to these white noise streams are paying customers it puts Spotify in a bit of bind, because these people are actually paying to listen to white noise.

The article also mentions the journalist talked to the police who have kind of confirmed it.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#74

Post by retSava »

lillecarl wrote: post #69
drukenemo wrote: post #51

I wonder why Sweden is seeing an increase in criminality. Better seal my lips if I want to keep an account on HN. Why I find interesting is how some topics are basically self-censored whilst we like to pretend we’re having a free discussion.

We've had a rapid uncontrolled population increase, this in combination with a overregulated housing market causes problems. (housing regulation being rents are controlled for first party renters(artificially low)). This regulation means it's impossible to find a rental where you want to live because nobody builds them (they wouldn't be profitable). This is not the answer, but it belive it's part of it. That we incre…

Population increase yes, from immigration. The problems coming from the segregation stem from immigration (almost per definition), not "population increase" which sounds like Sweden experienced a huge baby boom.

Sugar coating the problem or painting a different picture than what it is, is part of the problem. For example, of course there are challenges and costs with immigration, and it doesn't help anyone pretending there aren't. Of course immigration from low-education countries will have on general lower education. Pretending otherwise will ensure they won't get the help they need to become a part of the society. Of course patriarchical society immigrants will generally have a patriarchical mindset. It doesn't help that turning a blind eye to that just because you (not you specifically) is afraid being called a racist for calling that out.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#75

Post by lawlessone »

rockbruno wrote: post #42

Seriously? According to the article, their only "proof" is that four criminals said "oh yeah I do this trust me bro". This qualifies as "investigative journalism" today?

>Seriously? According to the article, their only "proof" is that four criminals said "oh yeah I do this trust me bro".

Same article mentions further down that the Police have also basically confirmed it is an issue but Spotify aren't acknowledging them.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#76

Post by happywolf »

zpeti wrote: post #54
drukenemo wrote: post #51

I wonder why Sweden is seeing an increase in criminality. Better seal my lips if I want to keep an account on HN. Why I find interesting is how some topics are basically self-censored whilst we like to pretend we’re having a free discussion.

> Why I find interesting is how some topics are basically self-censored whilst we like to pretend we’re having a free discussion Propaganda doesn't work because people actually believe it. It works because everyone thinks that everyone else has that information, and that's what the authority wants to believe, so you keep quiet and pretend you believe it. So does everyone else. So in the end everyone complies. But Sol…

Exactly, and this kind of selective ignorance actually costs everybody dearly in the long run. Because we just cannot please everybody.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#77

Post by mjr00 »

lawlessone wrote: post #73
mjr00 wrote: post #39

Given my experience and knowledge of how Spotify deals with much-less nefarious uses of fake streams, I'm very skeptical of these claims. There's a significant (several month) delay between a Spotify stream and the artist getting a payout. (This is probably shorter if you're Taylor Swift, but the artist profiles involved here aren't.) During this time Spotify will indeed do some checks for stream legitimacy. It's not…

Considering you can just upload white noise and make money it's not entirely implausible. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-17/white-... If the accounts listening to these white noise streams are paying customers it puts Spotify in a bit of bind, because these people are actually paying to listen to white noise. The article also mentions the journalist talked to the police who have kind of confirmed…

The white noise stuff is entirely different from this... the two problems with the white noise podcasts are

1) it sneaks into the recommendation algorithm. There's legitimate reasons to want to listen to white noise, but the likelihood that someone listening to a podcast wants to next listen to 3 hours of white noise is effectively 0.

2) perception of fairness due to the "artist pool" that Spotify uses. Is it fair that a team of musicians, singers, engineers, etc. gets paid the same for a stream as someone who just uploaded 3 hours of white noise? Debatable. (I'm sure this will start happening with AI/procedurally generated music at some point, too.)

The users listening to the white noise are real people who are paying or hearing ads. It's not really relevant to the article at hand.

> The article also mentions the journalist talked to the police who have kind of confirmed it.

> The Swedish company said it was not aware of any contact made by law enforcement

If there's no actual case, it just means someone in law enforcement sent an email. They may have been told the story by the very same "anonymous gang member."

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#78

Post by lawlessone »

ansc wrote: post #60
styren wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Swedish coverage they also identified bot farms that are actively used for this purpose. So it's a bit more than hearsay.

Bot farms is wildly different than money laundering.

Yeah it isn't clear how they are doing it. Are they using fake accounts with paid membership or free accounts? Both are ineficient but the latter is way more inefficient

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#79

Post by motohagiography »

The sums seem too low to be plausible, but other platforms and "talent" could scale a bit better. Scheme would be: cash -> visa gift cards/cryptocurrency -> subscription to "talent" on platform -> legit fee deposits to "management company" -> ...

Some might call that laundering, but most people just call it publishing.

Re: Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

#80

Post by one_level_deep2 »

drukenemo wrote: post #51

I wonder why Sweden is seeing an increase in criminality. Better seal my lips if I want to keep an account on HN. Why I find interesting is how some topics are basically self-censored whilst we like to pretend we’re having a free discussion.

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