Spotify: Gangs Allegedly Using Music Streaming to Launder Money – Investigation Reveals

According to the investigation by the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the criminals put music on Spotify from artists associated with the gangs. They then use money that comes from robberies, contract killings and drug dealing, among other things, to buy streams on the platform.

Spotify pays the artists for the high number of streams. For 1 million streams, an artist in Sweden receives between 40,000 and 60,000 kroner, converted between 3,400 and 5,000 euros.

ATM

“I can confirm 100 percent that this is happening. I participated in it myself,” an anonymous gang member told the Swedish newspaper. Other gangs and a police detective would also confirm the story.

According to the detective, Spotify, a Swedish company, is “an ATM” for gangs. The police would have approached the platform about money laundering as early as 2021.

‘No hard evidence’

Spotify said in a response to AFP news agency that manipulating streams is “a challenge across the music industry”. It has been determined that less than 1 percent of all streams on Spotify are artificial, and they are recorded immediately before any payouts are made.

The company says it is not aware of contact requests from the Swedish police and says it has no hard evidence that criminals do indeed use the platform to launder money.

2023-09-05 19:22:02
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