Research identifies suspicious behaviour on Steam Marketplace that may suggest money laundering
The study found potential manipulation of the marketplace by certain traders in CS:GO
New research has found suspicious trading activity on Steam Marketplace that could suggest it is being used for money laundering.
This is according to a recent study in the Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation paper, which examined the use of video game secondary marketplaces as potential sites of money laundering.
The research focused on trades made within Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, using publicly accessible data to identify "the frequency and quantity of trades" over a five-day period in August 2020.
By collecting data including the anonymous IDs of sellers and buyers, the item ID, and the trade's value and timestamp, the study investigated "the frequency of trades between individuals and item transactions" for signs of money laundering.
The research found that a select few traders popped up frequently during this period, with four of them regularly appearing in the top ten of buyers and sellers.
For example, the study discovered that the top ten sellers performed 4.5% of transactions of CS:GO trades on the marketplace during this period.
The study said these individuals appearing that frequently indicated "either a manipulation of the marketplace or some other activity [that] may be occurring with these sellers for them to be both buying and selling at such a high frequency."
It concluded that by using "conventional money laundering signifiers" suspicious activity and behaviour can be identified on video game secondary marketplaces, and that as a result of these findings, similar investigations could be made on other platforms.