Twitch experienced a massive data leak in early October that exposed much of the site's source code as well as the site's top earners. The Twitch leak also exposed the earnings of some smaller Turkish Valorant streamers that were making a suspiciously large amount of money from Twitch bit donations when compared to their relatively small viewership.
The issue was investigated further and it was found that the Turkish Twitch streamers were suspected to have been involved in a money-laundering scam. The scam entailed the content creators being approached for a business deal that would cause them to experience an influx of donations through Twitch. They would then have to send between 50-70% of the proceeds of these donations back to the person who approached them originally. This would effectively make the money coming back to the scammer seem as though it was coming from a legitimate source when in actual fact it was accrued through stolen credit cards and Twitch accounts. Although the hacker leaked important information regarding the money laundering case, this was most likely not the main motive as to why Twitch's data was leaked.
In light of this information Riot Games, the developer and publisher of Valorant, are expected to ban the streamers suspected to be involved in the scam. The Twitch leak was luckily able to expose this scam before it became more commonplace in the industry as Twitch donations could seemingly have been the perfect place to launder dirty money.
The following Turkish Valorant streamers are suspected of being involved in the scam and are expected to be banned by Riot Turkey once more solid information surrounding the crimes is revealed by Turkish authorities.
- Dilâra Toprakci – Player for BBL esports
- Kaan ‘brasco’ Elver – Player for Fire Flux Esports
- Ekrem ‘logicman’ Aydın – Captain for BBL esports
- Semih ‘LEGOO’ Selvi – Captain for BBL esports
- lurzy0y0 – Player for Fire Flux Esports
- Orçun ‘farewell’ Köroğlu – Player for Unity Esports
- Yiğithan ‘DeepMans’ Kesici – Streamer
- Ibrahiim ‘cinar’ Cinar – Streamer
- Tolga ‘bacyx’ Bacak – Player for Digital Athletics
- Gökay ‘tecoNe’ Noğayer – Player for Beşiktaş Esports
- Uğur ‘Kuzuur’ Kiremitçi- Player for Digital Athletics
- Ertuğrul ”TheCady” Koç – Streamer
- Yusuf ‘Zz_yankas’ Yankaş -Streamer for Team Zero Zone
Some of the listed streamers such as "Farewell" and "LEGOO" admitted their involvement in the money laundering scam, however, both claim to have not known that the practice was illegal. Riot Games had very little to say on the matter whereas Twitch is yet to respond to the situation at all thus far. Although some streamers claim that the leaked Twitch earnings were inaccurate it was lucky that this scam was unearthed before any harm could be done.
Source: Dexerto