As authorities crackdown on alleged perpetrators of a Twitch money laundering scam, a new wave of raids in Turkey has resulted in 18 arrests.
Cybercrime units in Istanbul and other cities across Turkey conducted simultaneous operations on Tuesday, May 17th, with police detaining 18 suspects.
Police are still looking for one suspect in the Twitch money laundering scheme, according to Daily Sabah.
The scandal first came to light when the earnings of Twitch’s highest earners were leaked, revealing that some smaller streamers were earning far more than other streamers their size.
The scammers allegedly worked with Twitch streamers to send them “bits” (Twitch’s currency), which were paid for with stolen credit and debit cards, in exchange for cash.
Essentially, the Twitch streamers involved would refund 70-80% of their earnings and keep the rest, netting them a tidy profit.
According to Twitch, 150 streamers were sanctioned for abusing the platform’s monetization tools, resulting in $9.8 million being laundered through the Amazon-owned streaming platform.
This isn’t the first large-scale money laundering operation linked to the scandal. 40 people were arrested in 11 different provinces across Turkey in January. It’s unclear how many people are suspected of being involved, but this latest round of arrests brings the total to 58.
