[...] Players Banned – Not Gold Farmers – WTF? From Ralph Koster: http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/03…ey-laundering/ Gaming) The risk community noticed virtual money laundering So there’s this site called [...]

[...] Nonetheless, it’s yet another signpost towards the issues that will certainly arise as virtual worlds allow more cashing in and cashing out. If these truly ‘will work in much the same way as real world banks’ as the press release says, then there’s a host of laws associated with that — and I doubt too many videogame developers are ready to incur the sorts of uptime, guarantees, response times, and security rules that banks have. Would something like this mesh with say, Linden’s open source Second Life client? Probably not in the eyes of law enforcement… [...]

[...] Raph Koster has pointed to a sobering post by Kenneth Rijock, on the World-Check site. World-Check is a site that tracks risks world-wide, and Rijock is an attorney who has a rather interesting resume, to say the least: He has more than 25 year’s experience in the field of money laundering, as a practising laundryman, financial institution compliance consultant, and trainer/lecturer to law enforcement and the intelligence services of both the United States and Canada. After serving as a banking lawyer in an international law firm, he spent the decade of the 1980s as a money launderer and advisor to narcotics trafficking organisations operating in North and South America. [...]

[...] Linden Dollars, Entropia PEDs, or Tencent Q-Coins – which currency for Virtual Money Laundering? If you were going to use a virtual currency for money laundering, which would it be? Second Life is showing steady growth in its virtual economy, as noted at 3pointD. Raph and Matt have picked up on an article at World-Check on the general problem of virtual money laundering and have noted that the topic has floated around the industry for a while. But what about Q-coins? Tencent operates a massive IM / communication / community service called QQ in China. There is nothing like QQ in the US – it is ubiquitous with over 22 million Peak Concurrent Users (PCU) and 224 million active accounts, according to Gamasutra. And Q-coins. Q-coins are Tencent’s virtual currency. This currency is so popular that the Chinese government considers it a potential threat to its currency. Though Q-coins cannot be officially exchanged with real currency, they are used for payments for a wide range of online services as well as illegal activities including sex services and online gambling. I would not be surprised if Tencent expanded its QQ service beyond China… and where QQ goes, Q-coins will follow. But even so, here is a virtual currency that is widely used and accessible online with difficult jurisdictional issues if problems occur. Posted by SecurePlay at 10:15 [...]

[...] Nonetheless, it’s yet another signpost towards the issues that will certainly arise as virtual worlds allow more cashing in and cashing out. If these truly “will work in much the same way as real world banks” as the press release says, then there’s a host of laws associated with that — and I doubt too many videogame developers are ready to incur the sorts of uptime, guarantees, response times, and security rules that banks have. Would something like this mesh with say, Linden’s open source Second Life client? Probably not in the eyes of law enforcement… [...]

[...] Interesting…. the story has done a full loop, and now World Check has noticed various online gaming sites are talking about it. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/03…ey-laundering/ [...]