36 ms·
> "Money laundering through the Apple AppStore or Google Play isn’t a new idea and has been done before. In the 2011 the Danish part of the Apple App Store was
by justboxing 8y ago
> "Money laundering through the Apple AppStore or Google Play isn’t a new idea and has been done before. In the 2011 the Danish part of the Apple App Store was flooded with expensive suspicious applications. More than 20 out of 25 of the most downloaded applications were from China. The price of the apps ranged from $50-$100. For example, one of them “LettersTeach”, was intended for children who are learning English letters, yet it cost nearly $78. This pointed to money laundering then, however, what we encountered now is much more sophisticated.
I don't understand how the laundering part works. There was a similar link posted to an overpriced book on amazon yesterday on HN, which also alluded to money laundering.
So if I understand correctly, the person(s) who want to launder their ill-gotten cash publish an app with an outrageous price, and then by the same app with their ill-gotten money, thereby turning it legitimate (buy way of the app company)?
If yes, then how much money could you possibly launder this way? Won't purchase of the same app a 100 times (if that's even possible) raise suspicion? And even then you've only managed to launder 50 - 100 x 100 = max of 10,000 USD. This is peanuts for the real money launders who would be dealing with millions of $ monthly.
- saagarjha 8y agoMake a thousand fake accounts, load accounts up with money, and have them each buy your app?
- ww520 8y agoThe laundering part is easy. A guy has $1M need to clean up. Release a $1000 app under account A. Buy the app 1000 times with account B, C, D, ... Account A earns legit money.
- dlhavema 8y agoWhat about the 30% comission the app stores take? What's the going rate for money laundering? :P
- ww520 8y agoWell, the money was illegal to begin with.
- duxup 8y agoThat does seem steep. The main article indicates methods that I suspect don't involve a 30% cut.
- westpfelia 8y agoNothing wrong with losing a little bit of money to make a lot of money. Even Pablo Escobar had to write off 10% of all his money due to rats eating it. I feel like these people are ok with giving Google/Apple a 30% cut if it means a platform is provided for them to make the other 70%
- justboxing 8y ago> Even Pablo Escobar had to write off 10% of all his money due to rats eating it. I didn't think this was true, but your statement checks out. Wow! > "Pablo was earning so much that each year we would write off 10% of the money because the rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by water or lost," Escobar wrote. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-bands-2015-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-band...
- sushid 8y agoYou're making it sound like the credit card companies are idiots. If a huge portion of their stolen cards are buying an obscure app with a $1000 price tag, they're going to notify the authorities.
- white-flame 8y agoLaundering money means someone is using their own dirty money in a clean transaction, not further stealing others' money. This is all happening after the initial theft has taken place.
- chatmasta 8y agoCredit card companies don’t have product level insight. They would just see payments to “Apple Inc.,” hardly a rare occurrence for any customer.
- AngryData 8y agoWhy would the credit card companies even want to stop this? For every transaction they are earning processing fees, the only thing they need is a small amount of plausible deniability to shed any legal liability. They are basically being paid to look the other way.
- jfim 8y agoThere are already "click farms" [0] in China that are set up to game the app store rankings, this wouldn't be an unrealistic extension of their business model. [0] https://kotaku.com/inside-chinese-click-farms-1795287821 https://kotaku.com/inside-chinese-click-farms-1795287821
- consultutah 8y agoThat’s why they are using free games with in app purchases. You can download the game for free and buy the consumables a million times on a single account. It ends up being a lot less work.
- justboxing 8y agoThis makes the most sense. It's simple to execute and I guess the IRS can't really come after you for buying a ton of in-app purchases at high amounts, as you can simply say "I'm addicted to this game."