Gamers are probably not going to be surprised about some recent research findings that conclude secondary marketplaces in gaming can be used for money laundering. They may be even less surprised when that study focused on activity within Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the Steam Marketplace. Still, at least there’s now some scientific findings that have found these patterns.
A study published in the Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation paper followed data from five days of trading among CS:GO players within the Steam Marketplace in August 2020, which zeroed in on “irregularities in the frequency and quantity of trades” and attempted to apply existing money laundering identification methods to sniff out criminal activity.
The research found some select trader IDs that popped up frequently, including four individuals that regularly were the top 10 among buyers and sellers, as well as one particular user who produced three of the most commonly occurring duplicated trades, which would suggest an attempt to disguise the original source of funds and spread them out across multiple accounts.
The study concludes that applying traditional money laundering signifiers can be done on digital marketplaces like Steam’s to potentially find these criminals in the act, but it also points out that further research using more money laundering identification techniques paired with network analysis is needed in order to better confirm just what’s happening on the marketplace. Still, it would appear as if the data line up.
