Arrests and detainments have been made in connection with a ring of fraudulent bit purchases in Turkey using stolen credit cards.
After months of investigation, Turkish police have made 40 arrests in connection with the Twitch bits purchasing scandal that broke earlier this year.
According to the report from Daliy Sabah, Turkish Police detained 40 people in an operation against the gang. Four other suspects still remain at large. The operation was a culmination of allegations of long-running fraud on Twitch with stolen credit cards. Some of the suspects, as earlier reported, cooperated with streamers who were aware that the payments were made using stolen credit cards. The suspects were not named in the report.
Many of the revelations were made in the English-speaking world thanks to the massive Twitch leak, which caused the transactions to small streamers to come to light.
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What was the scandal about and who was involved?
For a refresher, the gang that's been accused of doing this would make absurd purchases for Twitch bits and then donate them to various streamers in exchange for a kickback. The scandal was so pervasive in Turkish Twitch culture that even esports stars got mixed into it. This includes World Champion Turkish Valorant pro Mehmet Yagiz "cNed" Ipek., though he denies that he had direct involvement.
“To be honest I don’t really have a statement to make about the topic because I’ve not even once messaged the bit-dude, he did not reach out to me [directly] once,” cNed said on stream at the time. “He talked with my older brother… That guy sent me the bits, the bits transferred to me. I didn’t report those bits to Twitch, I acknowledge that. Also didn’t report to Twitch and took the money. I repeat once again, the guy did not contact me. I acknowledge that even though I did not intend to, technically I got involved in this, unfortunately.”
His brother, Alihan “deNc” İpek, has also admitted his involvement in the scandal.
BBL Esports parted ways with several players and content creators connected with this scandal.
Some of the suspects were minors, according to the report. It's unclear at present what the punishment will be in this case.
Twitch has long been fighting things like fraud and other safety issues on their platform. While strides have been made, it's clear that there is still a long way to go if issues like this are still cropping up.
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