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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

#61

Post by FrustratedMonky »

bookofjoe wrote: post #11
rcme wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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

#63

Post by OnACoffeeBreak »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #30
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden's gangs are a product of the failures of the Swedish state to heal socieconomic disparities and integrate all members of society. They are Swedish through and through.

Yeah you know the word "gang" has been diluted and watered down quite a bit. It used to be groups of armed men who'd rob banks and open fire on anyone who'd be selling drugs who was not their affiliate, oh and also open fire on any small business who'd refuse to pay them for protection. This Spotify thing seems regular crime, I'd say bordering white collar crime given the non-violent nature of the procedure.

The procedure is non-violent, but the article links (however tenuously) these groups to bombings.

I know next to nothing about Sweden, not the bombing stats in the article seem staggering to me for a country of that size.

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

#64

Post by yieldcrv »

scarface_74 wrote: post #44

This just doesn’t sound realistic. It’s extremely inefficient and the pay out is low. There are a million of better ways to launder money.

Yeah it seems to be a big plot hole, I need a diagram of how this is supposed to work and which part of the stack has illicit funds to convert

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

#65

Post by mabbo »

I doesn't need to be millions of dollars per day to be happening, and worthwhile for the gangs.

Money laundering works best when you've got a lot of different streams of it, spread across many different economies. You want the dirty money dispersed to as many unrelated people as possible. Because it's easier for 100 people to each do something with $100 of dirty money than for 1 person to do something with $10,000 of dirty money.

And Spotify doesn't have any reason to try to stop it. They're not likely to lose customers of it, and it makes their numbers go up.

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

#66

Post by yieldcrv »

> Describing the process, he said the gangs would convert their dirty cash to bitcoin, then used the cryptocurrency to pay people who sold fake streams on Spotify, which is a Swedish company.

Could have swapped to Ether and sold a newly launched NFT collection to themselves

The dirty money holder purchases the collection across several addresses, the “artist” keeps the proceeds and cashes out

Faster, involves less people, plausible deniability with a little marketing campaign

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

#67

Post by hiatus »

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.

I don't think bot sales platforms are places most people would discover on their own, especially if they are willing to take money that is considered dirty.

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

#68

Post by kkielhofner »

Funny thing is a good chunk of the biggest pop hits (and probably Spotify streams) are rooted in Swedish production. Max Martin alone is tied with George Harrison for production on number of Hot 100 songs[0].

For a population of roughly 10 million Sweden punches WAY above their weight in pop music (as well as other genres).

So we have Swedish gangs manipulating a Swedish platform that also has a lot of music Swedes have had a hand in. Fascinating!

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin

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

#69

Post by lillecarl »

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 increased our population with people who are either not educated or can't get their educations verified is also a problem.

When I was younger I had faith the government was doing what's best for it's people, that's eroded into "these populist aholes will say anything to win votes no matter how it affects people"

The superstrict regulation (but not enforcement, except when it's convenient) on drugs probably doesn't help either. I know a dude that was recently fined 19000 SEK for a couple grams of pot, he went to court and won though.

My country is broken, in a seemingly unbreakable downwards spiral to becoming a first class shithole.

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

#70

Post by mjr00 »

styren wrote: post #55
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?

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

Botted plays are definitely real, but not typically used like this. Typically the scam for botted plays is either someone straight up selling stream purchases i.e. "buy Spotify 10000 plays for $10" or using them to boost perceived legitimacy. You would do the latter with a typical label scam, where you contact someone on Soundcloud, saying you are XXX Record Label and you want to sign their track, linking to XXX Record Label's Spotify account which shows impressive play numbers. You "sign" the track but then request a $50 "mastering fee" from the artist before release.

In either case, Spotify (usually, afaik) doesn't pay out for the actual botted streams, but it doesn't matter. The money is made by the scammer from the artist.

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