5 ms·
Wut. This is like stealing faberge eggs so that you can throw them through the window of a Shake Shack that you want to break into
by flotzam 5y ago
Wut. This is like stealing faberge eggs so that you can throw them through the window of a Shake Shack that you want to break into
- dahfizz 5y agoHave you ever heard the phrase "money laundering"?
- flotzam 5y agoYes, and it's almost always used as a vague catch-all
- mr_cyborg 5y agoThere are some resources out there if you search for the stages of money laundering. Companies that have to fight money laundering have to know what it looks like and what they can do to catch it. The stages are Placement, Layering, and Integration. Here’s one source that may help explain: https://www.stpaulschambers.com/stages-of-money-laundering-explained/ https://www.stpaulschambers.com/stages-of-money-laundering-e...
- flotzam 5y agoBut how does any of that apply to the supposed "Steam purchases with stolen credit cards by way of Bitcoin" scheme?
- mr_cyborg 5y ago1. Stolen money is used to buy bitcoin 2. Bitcoin is obfuscated by purchasing things online with it 3. Those online assets can be sold for cash
- flotzam 5y agoThe obfuscation in step 2 seems very superficial. Like, is the IRS not going to ask where you got your stacks of Steam codes from?
- rosndo 5y agoYour bank will probably be the first one to ask, lying is a felony. (As is money laundering, of course) Also Valve will be looking for this too, as required by their bank. This is an incredibly unrealistic money laundering scheme, entirely fabricated by mr_cyborg. The truth is that the “fraudulent transactions” here are double-spends, because Steam was accepting 0-conf payments in an unsafe way.
- anonymousab 5y ago> This is an incredibly unrealistic money laundering scheme, entirely fabricated by mr_cyborg. Using stolen money to buy gift cards, using those gift cards to buy real things and then selling those real objects or licenses or accounts after the fact is a well known process. Substituting "bitcoin" or any cryptocurrency for "gift card" is neither unreasonable nor unrealistic.
- rosndo 5y agoThis only makes sense where “stolen money” is money that you don’t actually control, such as stolen credit cards where the transactions will inevitably be charged back. In that case it does make sense to buy and sell gift cards in order to “cash out” the money. This does not make any sense in the context of bitcoin.
- rosndo 5y ago
- candiddevmike 5y ago1. Make a bunch of illegitimate money 2. Release some shitty game on steam that no one will play 3. Buy millions of copies of said shitty game with your illegitimate money using Bitcoin 4. Your illegitimate money is now revenue from your shitty game and can be taxed (Profit)
- berkes 5y agoHow can you launder money on steam? Buying swords or funny hats? Buying hundreds of games and then never play any?
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoBuy TF2 keys and trade them to another account? Or CSGO skins? It's incredibly liquid and there are third party marketplaces for cashing out
- netheril96 5y agoThey are not more liquid than BTC itself. Why not just sell the BTC directly?
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoI guess games and cosmetics sell easier than crypto scams.
- netheril96 5y agoYou got it backwards. It is much easier to sell crypto "scams" than games and cosmetics. At any given time, there are a lot of people ready to buy your BTC. For games and cosmetics, not so many.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoBitcoin is so liquid you can cash out millions within seconds. Source: I've done it
- mbesto 5y agoSpeculative theory - - You steal a credit card. - Buy BTC with said credit card. - Use BTC to buy Steam cosmetics that you already own and Steam converts that BTC to USD. You now have effectively used a stolen credit card to convert its value to cold hard cash that is not traceable, or at least requires several hoops to jump through to figure out who stole the card.
- k__ 5y agoWhy would they go over Steam? If they already have their assets in BTC they could simply put them in a mixer.