By Boasting around 200 million users around the world, few other video game titles have followings as massive as Fortnite.
The game, which is a premium, free to play title is so popular that developer Epic Games banked up to $3 billion in 2018 alone. That being said, according to a report released by the Independent, Epic Games is not the sole entity making large amounts of money off Fortnite. V-Bucks, which is the game’s official in-game currency is being used at alarming rates as a tool for illicit fund laundering via the dark web,
How Are Criminals Using Fortnite and V-Bucks To Launder Money?
According to reports from many a researcher, hackers are allegedly using stolen credit card details in order to purchase V-Bucks. Once the V-Bucks are purchased, they are resold at discounted rates to players as a way of “cleaning up” the currency.
Sixgill, a cyber-security firm unearthed the illicit activities with their agents reporting that they discovered this by posing as players and carrying out transactions with sad criminals.
Senior Intelligence Analyst at Sixgill – Benjamin Preminger stated:
“Criminals are executing carding fraud and getting money in and out of the Fortnite system with relative impunity.”
At present, it’s still unknown how money these hackers have made from their activities. That being said, Sixgill also noted that the amount of money flowing into Fortnite had seen a notable increase as the game continues to dominate in popularity.
The Perfect Scam:
This sort of scam is no surprise. Since it’s release, the online battle royale title has been a huge hit, attracting millions of players from around the world. With most of these players being younger kids and teens, it’s easy for them to be scammed.
Enter the dark web, which is an isolated part of the web which can only be accessed by specific software and is often the place where a myriad of cyber crimes are committed. Even though money laundering is also commonly practised with V-Bucks on other platforms on the internet such as social media, these illicit transactions are occurring in a far larger scale on the dark web.
V-Bucks, the new Bitcoin?
As we know, Bitcoin has found increasing popularity as a store of value and means of exchange in many sectors. It has also gained its fair share of bad publicity as a means of conducting criminal activities. As per a report from CipherTrace, criminals laundered over $2.5 billion in BTC from January 2009 to September last year.
Fortnite developer Epic Games has plans to eliminate V-Buck laundering before it grows to the same scale as BTC laundering. During an interview with the Hollywood Reported, an Epic Games spokesperson stated:
“Epic Games takes these issues seriously, as chargebacks and fraud put our players and our business at risk. As always, we encourage players to protect their accounts by turning on two-factor authentication, not re-using passwords and using strong passwords, and not sharing account information with others.”
Fortnite’s History of Legal Woes:
This report is the latest of legal struggles for Fortnite and Epic Games. In addition to this recent laundering scam, Epic Games is currently also facing a lawsuit from rapper 2 Milly for the game developer’s misappropriation of the rappers “Milly Rock” dance. The lawsuit was filed but a month ago as well. The dance, which was featured in the rappers music video for “Milly Rock” back in 2014, was added as a dance move during the fifth season of the game, even though it was added as “Swipe It”.
What are your thoughts on V-Bucks being hailed as the new BTC of criminal activities? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below.
Follow CoinBeat on Facebook, Twitter & Telegram
Subscribe to our CoinBeat Newsletter
Submit an article to CoinBeat
View live Marketcap Prices here
Comments