The Twitch salary leak allegedly revealed a money laundering scandal coming out of the Turkish Valorant scene. How did this happen? When the payment amounts were revealed, some noticed the smaller Turkish streamers were making unrealistic amounts of money, through bit donations. It’s being alleged that several of these streamers were approached with a deal that would give them several donations through Twitch, via stolen credit cards and Twitch accounts. All they have to do is send 50-70% of that money back, creating a terrible money laundering scandal through the Valorant pro scene. It’s being said that Riot Turkey is expected to ban these players caught.

This came courtesy of our own Jake Lucky on Twitter, but even greater information came later that day. According to Corentin Phalip, there are approximately 300 members of the Turkish Valorant pro scene wrapped up in this money laundering scandal. That is a horrifying number, and it’s a shame if it’s true. The FFrmTR forums also listed quite a few specific names that are expected to be banned by Riot Turkey:

• Dilâra Toprakci – Player for BBL esports
• Kaan ‘brasco’ Elver – Player for Fire Flux Esports
• Ekrem ‘logicman’ Aydın – Captain for BBL esports
• Semih ‘LEGOO’ Selvi – Captain for BBL esports
• lurzy0y0 – Player for Fire Flux Esports
• Orçun ‘farewell’ Köroğlu – Player for Unity Esports
• Yiğithan ‘DeepMans’ Kesici – Streamer
• Ibrahiim ‘cinar’ Cinar – Streamer
• Tolga ‘bacyx’ Bacak – Player for Digital Athletics
• Gökay ‘tecoNe’ Noğayer – Player for Beşiktaş Esports
• Uğur ‘Kuzuur’ Kiremitçi- Player for Digital Athletics
• Ertuğrul ”TheCady” Koç – Streamer
• Yusuf ‘Zz_yankas’ Yankaş -Streamer for Team Zero Zone

There is no word from Riot Turkey if a ban will come down and on who, but some players have already come forward and admitted their complicity in the event. For example, Farewell posted on Twitter about just this selfsame thing. According to Farewell, this offer came up about 8-9 months ago. According to him, they told him they watched a lot of commercials on the PC and it was just some extra income for a few months. The Valorant player said as soon as he realized it was a money laundering scheme, he stopped doing it:

“I haven’t been doing such a thing for 6 months, do you think I would have started this business if I knew that there was such a thing?”

Another of these players, LEGOOO from BBL Esports posted a Twitlonger about this. Apparently, a friend got them involved but had no idea it was a scam. It’s very likely few if any of these players actually knew the cards were stolen, or that anything was wrong with it. Though the link doesn’t appear to exist anymore, but they did say that there were hundreds of people like them, who had no knowledge about the illegal money laundering/stolen card issues. Many of them took part because their friends suggested it. Either way, it’s still illegal, and bans are likely forthcoming. We’ll keep you up to date as it develops.