Spotify is being used by Swedish criminal gangs to launder money, according to nu.nl which in its turn picked up the news from Svenska Dagbladet.
A striking report on Dutch news website nu.nl, reporting that Swedish criminal gangs are abusing Spotify for money laundering. The ploy consists of deception, in which unknown Swedish rappers seem to achieve great success. With the emphasis on seem, because it’s all fake. Telegram bots are used to make tracks by certain rappers look promising. Once successful, such a song appears on Spotify’s top list. And from then on, the song – no matter how bad – is picked up by flesh-and-blood listeners. From that moment on, money is generated which flows directly to criminals. Although this trick is used in less than one percent of all streams, Spotify says it is working hard to fix it.
