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The money laundering hypothesis appears a lot, however I'm not sure I buy it -- the complexity and cost of getting many people involved, with many accounts and

The money laundering hypothesis appears a lot, however I'm not sure I buy it -- the complexity and cost of getting many people involved, with many accounts and payment methods (themselves all tracked), all to then pay 30% to Apple on top, seems like a very convoluted and inefficient method. Worse, the goal of money laundering is to do it as subtly and legitimate-looking as possible, and putting garbage apps at ridiculous prices doesn't seem to meet that requirement. It seems more likely that someone was trying to game the charts: Some categories need surprisingly little revenue to top, and each of these apps started at ridiculous prices, dropping to the normal $0.99 a month later. Some very naive person may have thought "investing" in buying only a few copies of their app (getting back 70% of it, or even more if they bought discounted iTunes cards) would get them enough exposure that it would pay back (whether through future purchases of the app, or as some sort of backstop to demonstrate their excellence as an iOS developer, etc). This is, it's worth noting, exactly how many books get on best seller charts, particularly in the smaller-market, easily manipulated categories. ^1 Just as a point of reference, I implemented anti-money laundering systems for a banking conglomerate, so I have been deeply involved in analyzing money laundering schemes. I should add that I would love to make money for "nothing". To make the next Flappy Bird. Don't we all? To be very negative about that has the unpleasant stench of jealousy. ^1 - http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323864304578316143623600544 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732386430...

lucaspiller 13y ago
> It seems more likely that someone was trying to game the charts: Some categories need surprisingly little revenue to top, and each of these apps started at ridiculous prices, dropping to the normal $0.99 a month later. Hang on... so the top paid apps are based on revenue? I always assumed it was based on the number of downloads.
- corresation 13y ago
  There is a top paid, and a top grossing, overall and by category, on both iTunes and the Play Store. I don't know what the metric for "top paid" is (though comparing downloads/ratings and price/IAP, it, too, seems to be by gross and not counts, or some combination of the two), but top grossing would very much benefit from this scheme.
- Systemic33 13y ago
  Isn't there two paid top lists? Grossing; based on how much it earned, and regular, just based on popularity with the requirement that its a paid app.
frogpelt 13y ago
Perhaps these apps are created by developers from other countries who are not as familiar with USD and software value and are just trying to publish something on the App Store. I could see a young college student in Pakistan creating an app that does something totally random and just throwing an equally random price on it just for the experience.
- corresation 13y ago
  Absolutely possible. The linked article claims, however, that these apps also saw success on the charts. Now that isn't actually linked to any citation of said charts, so whether it's true or not is open to question, but my comment was purely based upon that.
gxs 13y ago
Money laundering is a fascinating topic for me. My dad worked for a really wealthy guy in LA that was great at it. Would love to share some stories. Do you have any resources? Good books (fiction, but accurate or non fiction) that you could recommend?
- faster 13y ago
  I read "The Laundrymen" a few years ago. It's WAY out of date, but goes pretty deep into how money was laundered in the 70s. I'd love to read an update of that book, or something similar.
Shinkei 13y ago
Out of curiosity, what are the favored money laundering methods of modern day? More creative/impressive one you've heard of?
- tragic 13y ago
  > Out of curiosity, what are the favored money laundering methods of modern day? HSBC. EDIT: see here for example: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-laundering http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us... That's a 'record fine' cheaper than some of those bot-war books, but there you go.
- corresation 13y ago
  On the smaller scale (e.g. not billion dollar drug cartels), the primary mechanisms remain cash-based service business fronts and casinos. The more novel vehicles that took off in the 1990s was through insurance, where reporting was significantly more lax and the payouts were less tied to to the inputs. Enormous new regulations as a reuslt of 9/11 (and anti-terrorism financing) put dramatic new controls, such that large, third-party payments, or irregular situations will always get flagged and submitted to the government(s) for review.

lucaspiller 13y ago

> It seems more likely that someone was trying to game the charts: Some categories need surprisingly little revenue to top, and each of these apps started at ridiculous prices, dropping to the normal $0.99 a month later. Hang on... so the top paid apps are based on revenue? I always assumed it was based on the number of downloads.

corresation 13y ago
There is a top paid, and a top grossing, overall and by category, on both iTunes and the Play Store. I don't know what the metric for "top paid" is (though comparing downloads/ratings and price/IAP, it, too, seems to be by gross and not counts, or some combination of the two), but top grossing would very much benefit from this scheme.
Systemic33 13y ago
Isn't there two paid top lists? Grossing; based on how much it earned, and regular, just based on popularity with the requirement that its a paid app.

frogpelt 13y ago

Perhaps these apps are created by developers from other countries who are not as familiar with USD and software value and are just trying to publish something on the App Store. I could see a young college student in Pakistan creating an app that does something totally random and just throwing an equally random price on it just for the experience.

corresation 13y ago
Absolutely possible. The linked article claims, however, that these apps also saw success on the charts. Now that isn't actually linked to any citation of said charts, so whether it's true or not is open to question, but my comment was purely based upon that.

gxs 13y ago

Money laundering is a fascinating topic for me. My dad worked for a really wealthy guy in LA that was great at it. Would love to share some stories. Do you have any resources? Good books (fiction, but accurate or non fiction) that you could recommend?

faster 13y ago
I read "The Laundrymen" a few years ago. It's WAY out of date, but goes pretty deep into how money was laundered in the 70s. I'd love to read an update of that book, or something similar.

Shinkei 13y ago

Out of curiosity, what are the favored money laundering methods of modern day? More creative/impressive one you've heard of?

tragic 13y ago
> Out of curiosity, what are the favored money laundering methods of modern day? HSBC. EDIT: see here for example: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-laundering http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us... That's a 'record fine' cheaper than some of those bot-war books, but there you go.
corresation 13y ago
On the smaller scale (e.g. not billion dollar drug cartels), the primary mechanisms remain cash-based service business fronts and casinos. The more novel vehicles that took off in the 1990s was through insurance, where reporting was significantly more lax and the payouts were less tied to to the inputs. Enormous new regulations as a reuslt of 9/11 (and anti-terrorism financing) put dramatic new controls, such that large, third-party payments, or irregular situations will always get flagged and submitted to the government(s) for review.