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Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

theguardian.com

11–20 of 88 posts

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

#11
post #8
post #2

The way Spotify allocates stream revenue to artists has been extremely broken for a long time. It's been chock full of scammers for ages. The problem is that there's some kind of amplification effect where if you pay 10 USD/month for an account and stream 24/7 you can move more than 10 USD/month in the total payout of the platform.

Even if you get < $10 it can still be worthwhile for money laundering purposes.

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

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

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A criminal gang based in Sweden is a Swedish criminal gang by definition.

The term "Swedish" as used in this headline likely implies to many more than just this pedantic and America-centric definition of nationality. It's fair to bring up that point.

America-centric? I'm European! It's not a statement of nationality, it's one of location.

If French people start a company in the US, it'll be an American company. Same with these Swedish gangs, it doesn't matter where the people are from.

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

#15

Seems... particularly inefficient. I would've thought there were easier ways.

There is...you're asked about your bank account, then few days later you receive $100,000 along with info to send it to another 5 accounts $20,000 each. Guess what happens next?

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

#17
post #15

Seems... particularly inefficient. I would've thought there were easier ways.

There is...you're asked about your bank account, then few days later you receive $100,000 along with info to send it to another 5 accounts $20,000 each. Guess what happens next?

That's just a straight-up scam rather than laundering, generally (the money resulting from _that_ would then need laundering).

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

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A criminal gang based in Sweden is a Swedish criminal gang by definition.

The term "Swedish" as used in this headline likely implies to many more than just this pedantic and America-centric definition of nationality. It's fair to bring up that point.

Swedish means from Sweden, these gangs are from Sweden, membership is pretty varied, non-native Swedes, native Swedes from different ancestral ethnicity and completely native Swedes with families being European for a long, long time...

There's no "fair to bring up that point" here, be a better Christian, not a racist one.

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

#20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is...you're asked about your bank account, then few days later you receive $100,000 along with info to send it to another 5 accounts $20,000 each. Guess what happens next?

That's just a straight-up scam rather than laundering, generally (the money resulting from _that_ would then need laundering).

Money muling (the activity I described above) is a type of money laundering.
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