Money laundering through trading in game items: an analysis of the industry
CS Game Item Traders:GO say that the largest case of money laundering may be happening on the market right now. How does the trade work and where does the illegal income come from?
Game markets and trading of game items
Often players trade items among themselves for cash. They find a buyer, transfer items and receive money. Without signatures and contracts.
The largest market is items from the CS:GO game. Because the offer of "skins" is limited. They get them for opening cases: you pay 150 rubles and pick up a random item.
New valuable items are rarely taken out, the supply is growing weakly. Although the demand remains, and the price is rising. For example, items from the Katowice 2014 collection are now selling hundreds of times more expensive.
Money laundering through games
Laundering occurs regularly, but not in large volumes. And recently, traders discovered an account that collected $1 million worth of items in a week. A large sum aroused suspicion.
It turned out that the assets had been transferred over fake accounts for several months. Now the "transit" inventory is empty. And most of the items had one owner. The trader, at the request of the "client", bought skins for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the final owner is also one.
Traders have different versions, but the main one is money laundering. Although the person left the accounts public. Maybe there's nothing to hide. But he bought liquid assets for six months and transferred them to a dozen fake inventory. There is no verification with a passport or other documents on the accounts - the owner cannot be identified just like that. And the use of crypts for sale additionally covers up traces.