Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Issue: 117   Editor: Nyxxie


Money Laundering - Have you heard? BrickTamland
We all log into Bootleggers knowing that we are safe from certain things for the majority of the time. These things include exploits, harsh bugs, cheaters, and players with duplicate accounts (dupes). As we all know, the Family Accounts rule, and later on the Family Accounts page, successfully prevents these problems from occuring, most of the time anyway. However, an increasingly large issue cropping up is money laundering and that money is considered ‘dirty’ if it has any link between a party and their family account.

One of the Family Accounts rules states, "You cannot give money/points to each other". It also states, " If you manage to break these rules or get around them somehow, there is a chance that you may get banned for having duplicate accounts". Pretty simple really, if you try to circumvent the rules regarding sending money to duplicate accounts, there's a chance you'll get banned for it.

The Buzz had asked MagzFuckenTastic (Mags) about the issue, why he is concerned with ‘money laundering’. He said, “The issue behind money laundering that concerns me is that not everyone on the same FA list who uses the same cash holder not on their FA list is duping”.

This topic was kicked off by Mags creating a topic on the morning of March 10th. This topic contained the following scenario:

Quote:
We all earn money in this game and mostly via crimes. So it's dirty money right. So I send it to say a holder who banks it and cleans the cash and then distributes it amongst many holders who bank it further and clean it some more until it becomes basically my cash. Then I tell holder A to instruct holders B through G to bank and buy points and holders H through M to bank and send to shooters A through F.



The Buzz asked him what he wished to accomplish from the topic. He replied, “What I was trying to accomplish was a simple matter of HEY HELLO there are still legit people playing and this carte blanche attitude towards just banning anyone suspected and expect them to prove they are legit is bullshit". He went on to say, "Ask any mod...they have heard it all before. Makes it very hard for a legit person to prove who they are and have the matter settled there and then without a lengthy appeal process or extra attention after the appeal approval.”

It seems as though Mags is of the opinion that the staff have a “shoot now, ask questions later” type of attitude towards the notion of money laundering, that other possibilities, such as two roommates accidentally being banned for using the same money holder although no actual breaking of the rules occuring. If both room-mates get killed and the same holder issues them both with cash, there's a chance that all three are banned. This is because there has been money interaction between the three accounts although not actually money laundering.

We decided to ask the Bootleggers public for their opinions on this issue and asked a couple of players what they thought. GodFotherV8 stated, "Yes, I am with Magz. I like his thoughts most of the time". However, he also told us, "but I also know that the Admins/Mods are doing their best to make this game better". On a final note, he said, "but that doesn't mean they can't try to do better."

PintoBabbaX told us, "I totally agree with Magz on this issue because the Moderators are too fast with banning people who are holding alot of money". He went on to say, "Even if those people did send money to their holder and get banned with a reason like duping, it doesn't prove that he/she is duping because it could be like you said a room-mate and everybody makes mistakes so if they get a ban for playing the game right it would be unfair". He also took time to tell us, "My idea to the moderators would be, if you think someone is duping don't ban them too fast and try to find out what is so different on the accounts. Like OC daily at the same time or logging on the accounts at the same time, or booze on the same times, and the way of talking gives you a clue (not always). Because people are quiting if they get an unfair ban, they would be like, if I play again I could get another ban again".

Strong words from this player who is clearly not on the side of the Staff.

The staff is always trying new techniques, scripts, and attitudes to catch the bad guys. Sabin had given us his time to answer one question, the Buzz asked him “How thorough are the investigation towards finding money launderers?” He said, “The investigations are exactly as thorough as necessary to protect Bootleggers from the plague of Dupers and other forms of cheating. The "money laundering" debate isn't about mafia-style cleansing of money sources through high-throughput cash-based businesses. It's about dupes finding new ways to circumvent our past guidelines in order to propagate their activities."

Whatever your opinion on this new found criminal activity, it looks like some may be using it for a while to come so you'd better get used to the results.