
'Nearly All' CounterStrike Microtransactions Are Being Used for Money Laundering - nic_wilson
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xw7nx/nearly-all-counter-strike-microtransactions-are-being-used-for-money-laundering
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moftz
I remember the CSGO skin betting sites. You'd transfer skins to bot accounts
to bet on streams of esports matches. The skins were valued at market price
from the Steam marketplace. After the match, other bots would then transfer
back to you a collection of skins equivalent in dollars to whatever the odds
were. The system would give you whatever skins it could to fill the equivalent
dollar amount so there would be a lot of common skins that you'd flip for
pennies. Larger bets meant you got back some skins actually worth keeping.
Obviously this marketplace only gives you Steam store credit but it wasn't
that hard to find third party markets that would let you "gift" game codes you
bought with Steam store credit or trade CSGO skins again.

It was immediately apparent the whole thing could be used to launder money
easily across borders, you don't even need the third party market buyer to be
in on the laundering. The products being sold were legit and had real value to
everyday people unlike bitcoin or expensive art.

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Deimorz
The title is useless for recognizing it, but this is a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21392007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21392007)

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dredmorbius
I'd classify these as related but not dupes.

The game platform's own statement and a journalistic treatment are not
identical.

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CryptoPunk
You can't stop money laundering without subjecting every private interaction
to warrantless surveillance. In an age of purely digital, peer-to-peer
currencies, nothing short than banning the public from using strong encryption
will stop money laundering.

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diminoten
Seems like preventing the trade of digital goods stops money laundering fairly
effectively...

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marcos123
So money laundering never happened before digital goods existed?

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diminoten
Yeah, because I meant all money laundering and not just this specific
laundering situation...

