An investigative report by a Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) reported that criminal gangsters are using Spotify streams to launder money. The report found that criminal organizations have used funds from their criminal activities to pay for false Spotify broadcasts of songs by musicians with gang affiliations in recent years. This artificially inflates the artists' earnings, which can then be used to fund criminal activities.
According to the report, criminals are using a variety of techniques to achieve the goal of converting their dirty cash to bitcoin, and then using the cryptocurrency to pay people who sold fake streams on Spotify. Apparently these methods seems to be fairly common around the Swedish "gangster rap" scene.
The use of music streaming to launder money appears to be a growing problem. As that market continues to grow, law enforcement agencies, the music industry, and the streaming services would have to work together to make this a less attractive option for criminals.
