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It is enough already with the old tired rhetoric that Bitcoin is the first choice of criminals for money laundering. Criminals will use all available means, including Fortnite's V-Bucks, according to a new investigation by The Independent.
Free game, expensive clothes
The game Fortnite Battle Royale has become an online phenomenon, largely because it is multiplatform and free-to-play. However, game items, such as skins, must be paid for using V-Bucks in-game currency. With 1000 V-Bucks that cost around $ 10, there's a market ready for discounted coins, and that's where the criminals come in.
They buy the V-Bucks using the stolen credit card details and then sell them to the players at a discount to "clean up" the money effectively. These are available for wholesale purchase on the dark web and in smaller quantities on social media platforms.
Fortnite is too weak
The computer security company Sixgill, which undertook the investigation with The Independent, has discovered operations worldwide. Senior analyst Benjamin Preminger explained that "criminals are … getting money in and out of the Fortnite system with relative impunity. "
The threat actors are mocking the weak security measures of Epic Games, stating that the company does not seem interested in players who defraud the system and buy discounted V-bucks … This directly affects the ability of actors to threaten to recycle money through the game.
Who has the biggest automatic laundry
The overall profit made by the Fortnite fraudsters is unknown. In fact, it is easier for a blockchain analysis company to trace bitcoins on its public ledger transparently than some database tokens like V-bucks.
However, Sixgill discovered $ 250,000 of Fortnite items sold on eBay in a 60-day period last year. Epic Games, which develops Fortnite, earned $ 3 billion in 2018 and the game's popularity shows no sign of decline.
Meanwhile, banks are constantly in the news to be complicit in money laundering or negligent in their monitoring.
On the contrary, the authorities are trying and successfully pursuing those who try to use Bitcoin for money laundering. Clearly it can not be a job as simple as the alarming would have us believe. Last year it was reported that only 0.17% of cases of money laundering in Japan concerned cryptocurrency.
What do you think of criminals who use the virtual currency of the game to recycle money? Share below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
