AFP Criminal groups in Sweden, responsible for a wave of shootings in the country in recent years, are using the music platform Spotify for money laundering, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, 5. According to a journalistic investigation by Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), gangs have for years used the money they earn from drug trafficking, robberies, fraud and murders to pay for counterfeit downloads of music that was released by artists associated with criminals.
This allows them to receive payments from Spotify the largest digital music platform in the world and launder the money from their illegal activities. The newspaper said the information was confirmed by four different gang members operating in Stockholm and using data from a police investigator.
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“I can say with 100 percent certainty that this is happening. I was involved myself,” said a gang member who did not want to be named, SvD reported. “We pay people to do this for us,” he added.
According to the source, criminal groups convert money from illegal activities into Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin to pay the people who generate the fake downloads. The newspaper assured that in Sweden, one million downloads generate between 40,000 and 60,000 Swedish krona (between 3,600 and 5,400 US dollars).
The police inspector interviewed in the report said he contacted Spotify in 2021 to report this practice, but the company never responded.
“Spotify has become an ATM for gangs,” the agent told the newspaper.
In a statement to the AFP news agency, Spotify said manipulated downloads were “a challenge for the entire industry” and that the company was “working hard to solve this problem.”
Sweden has been experiencing violent episodes for several years due to clashes between gangs and the settlement of scores. According to police, there were 90 bomb attacks and 391 shootings in 2022, with 62 deaths.