It has been reported that money laundering using this platform system is actively taking place in Turkey from the amount paid to the delivery person, which turned out to be a Twitch data mass leak incident in October. The case has caused a stir in Turkey and is developing into a situation in which parliament is submitted to a consent to investigate the incident.
On October 6th, a torrent file was posted on Reddit, the largest English-speaking social community, giving access to 125GB of data that hackers allegedly stole from Twitter. This file contains the entire Twitch source code including commit history, its own SDK used by Twitch, internal AWS service information, and unpublished Steam competitors developed by Amazon Game Studios. Experts say it contained such a large amount of data that it was considered the largest breach they had ever seen.
Among the leaked data, the one that drew attention was information about money paid to creators after 2019. This data is actually equivalent to the amount they earned on Twitter, and it is said that multiple people admitted to the truth. In the analysis, it was also reported that the top 1% streamers account for more than half of what Twitch pays. That’s money laundering.
According to leaked payment information for streamers, some Turkish Twitch streamers are earning up to $1,800 per day despite only having 40 to 50 viewers per day. As a result of investigating this unusual situation, it is said that he found out that money laundering was taking place using the currency on the Twitch platform.
A bit is a currency that viewers can send to streamers, and the person who receives it can earn $0.01 per bit. Bits can be purchased from 100 to 25,000 bits at a time, and the rate varies depending on the quantity purchased, but 25,000 bits, which give the streamer $250, can be purchased for $308. In other words, 80% of the amount paid can be converted into bits and exchanged.
It is said that there are some Turkish deliverers who claim to pay 20-30% as a commission if the person who actually earns in bits is remitted to a designated account. These bizarre transactions result in cybercriminals performing money laundering using stolen credit card information. In fact, as in the case of the contributor, there are many cases where 10,000 Turkish Lira is withdrawn without consent.
The amount of laundering from these transactions has risen to an estimated $9.8 million, with an estimated 2,400 streamers suspected of being involved. A prominent Turkish Twitch streamer with 1.7 million followers who received attention in Turkey about this incident said that the data was provided in cooperation with the Cyber Crime Countermeasures Office.
There was also a social media campaign (#dobettertwitch) asking for improvements to Twitch. The Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party, is developing into a situation in which it submits a consent request to the Financial Crimes Investigation Committee and other domestic institutions to investigate this case.
Twitch said it had taken action against 150 Turkish streamers in the name of abuse of monetization tools. It added that it will continue to identify and delete streamers who are believed to have violated local laws and Twitch policies. Related information can be found here.