How children playing Fortnite are helping fuel organised crime - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/fortnite-v-bucks-discount-price-money-dark-web-money-laundering-crime-a8717941.html Criminals are using the hugely popular video game Fortnite to launder money through its in-game currency, The Independent can reveal. The online battle royale game has become popular with children and teenagers because it is free to play and available on every major gaming platform. But the money spent within the game to buy outfits, weapons and other items has also made it popular with cybercriminals. Stolen credit card details are being used to purchase V-bucks – the virtual currency used to buy items in the game – from the official Fortnite store. By selling V-bucks at a discounted rate to players, the criminals are effectively able to “clean” the money. An investigation by The Independent into online black markets selling V-bucks, together with research by cyber security firm Sixgill, revealed the scale of the money laundering operations. Discounted V-bucks are being sold in bulk on the dark web – a hidden section of the internet only accessible using specialist software – as well as in smaller quantities on the open web by advertising them on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. By posing as potential customers, Sixgill agents uncovered operations being conducted around the globe in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and English. It is unclear how much profit criminals were able to make through money laundering, though Sixgill found that Fortnite items grossed more than $250,000 on eBay in a 60 day period last year.

Doesn't fortnite have no trading and no way to sell v-bucks?

Glad to see Epic catching up to Valve in all the fields.

Same thing with any virtual currency really, except whatever Artifact uses, ain't nobody want that shit!

Carded stores have been thing since the deep web has been a thing, I'm not sure what's newsworthy here? Are they just trying to make fortnite look bad? Stolen credit card details are being used to purchase V-bucks – the virtual currency used to buy items in the game – from the official Fortnite store. By selling V-bucks at a discounted rate to players, the criminals are effectively able to “clean” the money Sounds real scary until you realize they do the same thing with basically every type of gift card and even physical goods. iphones are helping fuel organized crime

I thought making Fortnite was an organised crime.

This seems like another BIG SCARY HEADLINE for parents who know nothing more than "my kid plays fortnite" g2a and other scummy game marketplaces have had this for years.

I personally think children have enough bad influences going on. Parents need to do a better job regulating what their kids play, watch and do online.

I thought this was going to be about Fortnite skin scams, where they trick people into buying gift cards and sell the cards for Bitcoins on the deep web.

My Gaben fun bucks have some serious value in the black market, don't test me fam

That's how the mafia works.

This isn't anything new. I'm sure people still do this with WoW gametime

Bonus round: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/16/major-bug-fortnite-gave-hackers-access-millions-player-accounts-researchers-say/

Hell this has been a thing before the deep web.

Just like itunes, just like google play, just like any other massive online storefront.

They’ve been around a lot longer than that. Just not as openly accessible.

Is this a relevant example though? How likely is it that a significant portion of the youngest audience is going to use the dark net to buy V-bucks? He's gotta have the means to pay on darknet the know how to use it and the will to use it. Would any kid that smart be playing fortnite? Bad jokes aside this is not something the average parent will need to worry about for their kid playing fortnite on android. Small amounts are being marketed on twitter/facebook but that might say more about those websites then any inherent flaw with fortnite.