Group Laundered $38M in Virtual Currencies in 18 Months

Last week Korean police arrested a group responsible for laundering money generated by Chinese gold farming from Korea back to the mainland. Over 18 months, the group wired $38 million from Korea to a Hong Kong paper company as payments for purchases. In return, the group took a commission of 3-5% for purchasing the virtual currency in China, reportedly produced by traditional farming as well as viruses, and then cashing out in the Korean market.

The problem of money laundering through virtual goods seems more focused on the larger online games, especially those that don't allow legitimate secondary markets. With the growing virtual goods-supported casual MMO and virtual world market, it's certainly on people's minds. It's certainly come up more than a few times in government and academic discussions around Second Life and other worlds, but more from a theoretical perspective than the actual practice. Cases like this, though, can bolster those concerns and make fraud in general seem especially worrisome. [via PlayNoEvil]