ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – A group of Turkish live streamers have in recent weeks exposed an alleged fraud and money laundering ring that utilized the live streaming platform Twitch, reportedly netting hackers nearly $10mn.
Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, describes itself as “an interactive livestreaming service for content spanning gaming, entertainment, sports and music”.
The scandal surfaced after an anonymous hacker leaked Twitch’s source code and user payout information online last month.
Having examined the leak, users in Turkey quickly realized something was odd - streamers with little to almost no following were earning thousands of dollars through a platform called Bit, which allows viewers to express their appreciation to the hosts with special paid emojis.
Twitch transfers one percent of income obtained through Bit to the individual streamers. Some were found to be earning up to $1,800 a day, despite have just 40 to 50 viewers.
Under the scam, hackers firstly allegedly stole or obtained the credit card information of random individuals. They then negotiated deals with Twitch streamers to send them large payments of money through Bit.
The streamers would then refund 80 percent of the money they received to different bank accounts belonging to the hackers, effectively laundering the money.
Global Twitch streamers, who became aware of the money laundering scam following the leak, last month began a social media campaign on Twitter via a hashtag called #dobettertwitch.
Turkish Twitch users then started their own campaign with a hashtag calling for a “clean Twitch” (#temizTwitch).
According to the calculations by the Turkish news website Haberler.com, a total of $9.8mn was laundered through 2,400 Turkish streamers over the past two years.
Turkish Twitch streamer Grimnax, who is one of the campaigners, earlier this week revealed a conversation he had with one of the scammers, posting the screenshots on Twitter.
The screenshots suggest a person named Sinan had offered him a 20 percent cut of the Bit income per broadcast if he agreed to refund the remaining amount of money.