Swedish Gangs Use Fake Spotify Hits From Affiliated Ganster Rappers To Launder Money

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The bombshell investigative report by a Swedish newspaper revealed how the Swedish underworld is changing its soiled money into reputable earnings through the streaming platform…

Swedish prison gangs are utilizing Spotify to launder cash by engineering synthetic hits on songs owned by gang associates to obtain large payouts from the streaming platform.

The revelation comes from an investigative report by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), which cites a whistleblower who recounted how gangs are exploiting the Swedish streaming big to transform their soiled money into reputable earnings.

The informant, identified by the pretend identify of Ismet, advised SvD how the gangs, swimming in unlawful money generated by way of medicine, robberies, fraud, and folks trafficking, are changing the proceeds of crime into cryptocurrency earlier than paying people, whom he known as “Telegram bots,” after recruiting them on the encrypted messaging service to arrange pretend listens on Spotify on tracks beneath their management.

“We paid people who did this for us systematically,” Ismet defined.

“The bots ensured that we ended up on the top charts, by creating high pressure on a song. When we entered the top charts, we also got real streams,” he added.

The tracks had been normally linked to Swedish gangster rap, which skilled a surge in reputation just a few years in the past and which has an in depth affiliation with organized crime teams.

One million streams generate round 60,000 Swedish krona which converts to simply over €5,000, and Swedish gangster rap is receiving tens of hundreds of thousands of hits through the platform.

Spotify, which is a Swedish firm, presents each free and paid-for premium accounts, the latter of which generates extra income from streams. As such, the Swedish gangs usually search out rap artists to help with the cash laundering train whereas concurrently boosting their streaming hits, albeit initially artificially, which pushes their content material through the algorithm to assist attain extra real customers.

Ismet revealed that the promotion of the tracks was not only a money-making train but in addition a helpful recruitment device for influencing impressionable minors who can then be exploited by gangs. He, himself, was recruited as a teen into Sweden’s infamous underworld, which has been chargeable for a rising variety of bombings and shootings in Stockholm and throughout wider Sweden in recent times.

“I don’t want to sell people out, this is very sensitive. It’s about more than buying streams. If you’re a network and you want to attract kids and you have a rapper who’s going big, that’s half the job for you. It is very good for recruiting purposes,” the whistleblower mentioned.

The Swedish newspaper mentioned its report had been confirmed by “four independent sources from the criminal environment.”

In response, Spotify insisted that the corporate is dedicated to tackling the issue and has taken down plenty of questionable free accounts over suspected criminal activity.

The firm added that it “detects and fixes artificial behavior from both free and premium accounts.”

An analyst, known as Johan who works for Sweden’s secret National Operations Department (NOA), advised SvD that Spotify has “become an ATM” for prison networks.

“There is a direct connection to the gangs and therefore also to the deadly violence,” he added.