40 people arrested by Turkish police following investigation into Twitch money laundering scam

On October 11th, Twitch suffered a massive data breach. Out of this breach, information regarding both the site and payouts of Twitch streamers became publicly available. One Turkish streamer, Jahrein, made an observation that sparked an investigation into the Turkish side of the streaming platform, one that resulted in the arrest of 40 involved individuals.

It was found that several small streamers were receiving inexplicably high donations in bits. In the Twitch lexicon, bits are an online currency that can be donated and turned into actual money and are nonrefundable with the exception of fraud. A Turkish gang was allegedly sending bits from stolen credit cards to selected streamers.

The streamers were reportedly willing in the process and were completely aware that the money they were being donated was coming from stolen credit cards. The scam was primarily facilitated by the Turkish VALORANT community, where approximately 500 streamers were involved in the fraud ring including several minors. Allegedly, more than 15 million had already been laundered through the laundering scheme.

In a seizure operation, Turkish officials arrested 40 total participants in the the long running fraud ring. Four others involved in the process are reportedly still at large. On the streamer side, more than 150 accounts were banned in September alone with more likely coming after this recent update to the situation.