Epic’s Fortnite Battle Royale is making the company a ton of money, despite it being a free game. This revenue is generated by selling in-app purchases such as costumes. However it seems that a chunk of this change could actually be used by criminals to help launder their money.This is according to a report from The Independent in which they claim that V-bucks, the game’s in-game currency, are being purchased using stolen credit cards. The currency is then sold to other players at a discounted rate, which in turn gives the criminals “clean” cash compared to if they had used the credit cards to make other kinds of purchases.
Speaking to the publication, Benjamin Preminger who is a senior intelligence analyst at Sixgill said, “Criminals are executing carding fraud and getting money in and out of the Fortnite system with relative impunity. Threat actors [a malicious person or entity] are scoffing at Epic Games’ weak security measures, saying that the company doesn’t seem to care about players defrauding the system and purchasing discounted V-bucks… This directly touches on the ability of threat actors to launder money through the game.”
It is unclear as to how much profit these criminals are said to have made, and it is unclear if Epic is doing anything to curb it. When reached for comment by The Independent, the developer has yet to respond.
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