 Criminal organizations are using Spotify to launder money, and it's not just hurting the labels in Spotify. It's hurting artists as well. So we're about to talk about how they do it and how they're using hip hop to make it happen. Let's check it out. Aibra says Swedish criminal gangs use fake Spotify streams to launder money, which I've heard about some of this stuff before. We know what's happening. Some things happening, and it's not just the Swedish it's happening in America too. But this is actually pretty interesting because these are like gang gangs. These are organized crime. Criminal gangs behind a rise in bombings and shootings in Sweden in recent years are using fake Spotify streams to launder money. A Swedish newspaper reported on Tuesday. Anyone know how they know? How they know? Snitches. Like from the gang? From the gang. About four of them, the police investigations have confirmed it as well. But they said there's been four dudes who like straight up said, yeah, that's what we're doing. Must not be happy with that 0.004. Should I break it down or even? Right, the Spotify streams, they- Should I have clean cut as I thought it was gonna be? Like what? That's the fact, they get the artist's struggle. It's like, dang man, we only getting this much back per? Now it's like, I guess I could get more money being a snitch. You know what I mean? One guy said, I can say with 100% certainty that this goes on, I have been involved in it myself. Straight up, right? Now this is the crazy part about it. So we're talking about drug deals, robberies, fraud, contract killings, and we're talking about bombing. So again, this is the official official stuff. And the way they're doing it is they're taking Bitcoin, so they're converting that money into Bitcoin, and then they're paying the people who do bots for Spotify streams. Damn man, it's like, I wanna be morally sound and hate it, but it's shit kinda genius, I didn't go a lot. I mean, it's a plate that's right there in front of you. It's very simple, because the music industry traditionally has been used to launder money anyway. Yeah, like throughout history, yeah. It's just a new way, easier a way to do it. And? And faster. And faster. All right, don't have to leave your house, you know what I'm saying? You gotta convince this nigga to go outside. And these are real artists, by the way. Okay, I was just about to ask that. Like real, so the, do you know if the artists are actually? Aware? Aware, yeah, exactly. I don't know, so that part I don't know. This is the thing though, we've seen this plenty of times. I mean, especially in the U.S., we got a lot of gangs that. Fun music. Fun music, right? So that's nothing new. You know there's a lot of artists that are attached to gangs, and in this particular case, it reminds me of the artists that I've seen on Instagram. Have you ever seen these guys where there's a lot of money on the page, right? But you're like, okay, this could be like a fake digital marketer type money. Like, oh, they're just paying for stuff. They really don't have this money. But then you see enough of the scroll. You're like, no, this guy got money. Yeah, it's not real. There's money coming from somewhere. All right, this ain't just the I rented this, I rented this. This is real money. The streams ain't that great, or the streams are great, but the music is trash. So you still know like, this ain't really coming from there. And that's the situations where I feel like these artists don't know. It's like when you have an organization funding a lifestyle, so you are living good, right? They probably own clubs and things like that. So there's always gonna be a look for you when you go to the club. They know how to make the club move and give you a certain level of attention, but the artist might not know some of this level of attention is just from out of respect from the game. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. It's not all love for me. And then on the back end, they boosted my streams and I don't know. So I'm living in this entire bubble where I think I am the man. I think I'm popping, but these guys are really funding an entire lifestyle. I'm living in a damn bubble. What's that movie? That Jim Carrey movie? Bubble Boy. No, is that a movie? It's a real movie? Yeah, it's a real movie. Bubble Boy. And it's a Jim Carrey movie? I don't know if Jim Carrey is. Okay. It's the movie where he was living in a fake life and they set up the whole neighborhood. Whatever. Somebody'll know it in the comments. It's a pretty known movie, right? All right, so I wanna give a reminder that being independent, it's not just about not being signed to a label. It's actually making money without being signed to a label. Being able to have a sustainable career. And for those of y'all who actually want to be able to make money from your fan base, you're serious about figuring out how to monetize. I have a free video that you can check out. I don't need your email. I don't need your phone number. I don't need any information. All you have to do is go to www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize. And I'm gonna show you the lies that artists have been told that have been keeping them, probably you too, from monetizing your fan base and how shifting that perspective has allowed one artist we're working with to be on track to make over $500,000 this year. This is a different era. Don't fall for that trap saying artists can't make money. Artists do not have to be broke. So if you wanna escape that trap, go to www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize. You do have to make sure you put the www in the beginning when you type it in your URL and watch this free video again. You're not gonna be asked to put in your email. You're not gonna be asked for your phone number, but it won't be up forever. Check it out. Hip hop accounts for most streams, fake streams by the way. I believe that. So they are using hip hop to do it. One guy said, since 2019, that's when they really started using hip hop because in Sweden in particular, it started when awards are starting to get a lot of attention and take off over in Sweden. So they've been using hip hop especially, but to hip hop's credit, it is also the most consumed on digital platforms. So yes, they account for 84.5% of fake streams reported on music business worldwide. That's a huge percentage. But at the same time, I mean- That makes so many things make sense. It's the most consumed though. So it's like, are people saying I need to use hip hop just because that's what's most likely gonna consume or are they signing fake, I mean hip hop artists because they know that's the best type of music and then they do fake streams, you know what I mean? I don't blame it on hip hop. It just happens to be the most streamed and people are using what makes sense. And it's easier to hide within what's most streamed probably as well. I think it's most streamed, lowest barrier to entry than most other music genres. And I don't know if they thought this far ahead, but it's like, oh, if we get caught, this shit might actually boost the credibility because that genre respects things like that. You know what I'm saying? Sad as it is the same, bro, like sad as it is the same. If they got, like we talking about it right now cause they got caught. That is the twisted world that the hip hop lives in. And by the way, just for conversions, they're saying that they've amassed millions of streams and a million streams in Sweden pays about 40,000 to 60,000 Kronor. Now that converts similar to America because it's about 3,500 to $5,300 per million streams. So it's in a similar range. I know some countries convert a little differently, but with that being said, they said they have seen a boost in organic streams because of their bias. Yeah, I mean, we had the whole vibe, so we talked about, you know, it can lead you to the premise land in small specific situations. In specific, and if you don't really care for real, for real anyway, you're just really trying to launder that money. A little couple organic streams is just an add-on. But see, that's when I would start to get scared if I was and I'm like, oh shit, they starting to build a real fan base. I mean, they're going to be real people paying attention to this operation that could bring this whole thing. That's when I would get nervous. They trying to knock off the artist? I mean, maybe not knock them off, but like, I'd be like, yo, I ain't saying I don't want you cause to your point, right, the artist, let's assume they don't know what's going on. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Now our goals conflict because I want to be as big as possible and bring as much attention to myself. But they're probably like, oh, you know, too much attention can be a bad thing in this situation because now if we start getting a lot of real fans, Spotify has nothing to go like, hmm, this shit ain't adding up. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like we have enough real metrics here to see that the rest of this shit is suss as fuck. And now the whole operation comes crashing down because you wanted to be a superstar. Because you wanted to be a superstar. Because you wanted to be Swedish Drake. Impact the world and stuff, change lives. So it's just like, I could get it, you know, I could understand. And I don't know, man, if the artists are aware, cause you know, I know a lot of, I don't know how I know, but I've known of artists in the U.S. that were definitely aware that it was happening. You know, look at, what's his name? G. Erbo is going through not a similar situation, but a situation where he learned, like, hey, my manager was doing some suspect things to help keep my career afloat and then it's all coming crashing down on me in my career. No, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, you didn't say about that? Yeah, so like, I mean, G. Erbo's going to prison, I think for maybe, I don't know, y'all can let me know. Oh, like it was some kind of scam related type stuff. Yeah, it got tied back to the manager and like the team around him was doing it, but they were using that money to run his career when he was coming up. You know what I'm saying? No, G. Erbo at this point been in music since like 2011, 12, you know what I'm saying? So I think it was something they were doing maybe the first like five or six years of his career. Gotcha. And then it's all come back. It's not even new stuff that they were currently doing. I mean, I don't know if they were still doing it. You know what's actually funny? How I learned about it was, I was watching an episode of Pocket Watching with JT and this guy, no, it was funny, but it was crazy because this guy called in to comment on something he was talking about. And then that guy was saying like, yo, like, I grew up with like G. Erbo's team, like we all grew up in the same neighborhood and like, you know, his manager was doing all this scam and shit and like, we're going to see it come back on them a little bit. I think they're going to get caught. Like we started this shit started coming. It was just crazy. The Lord was connected. Dang. Because Pocket Watch, he like, he know what the fuck dude was talking about. Who the fuck is G. Erbo? Especially cause music's not even his thing. Yeah, exactly. So it was just crazy. It was wild that I got this information on a finance video. You got a tip. On a finance video. And then we later learned about this shit from the music space. Police probably looked into that thing. They were like, uh-huh. Okay. Wasn't expecting this information to come out here. So that's why I say like, I feel bad for the artists if they don't know. Because like I said, I do think at some point, conflict and interest comes into play. And then worst case scenario, you just scapegoat for it. Nobody ever gets mad at the gang behind the artists. You know what I'm saying? They get mad at the artist. They're like, yo, you stupid. Yeah. You stupid for taking help from these gang members. You stupid for letting them fund your career with illegal money. You know what I'm saying? So it's going to come back on them whether they know it or not. I'm glad I hear that because I did see the headlines that he was going to jail or something related to scamming. And I was like, this doesn't make sense from the G Herbo I've seen in interviews. It doesn't seem like he would be currently doing a scam. Like he seems smarter than that. But okay, now I know it's related to old stuff and the dude managers, okay, that makes more sense. Well, like let's say what Spotify said about this. Because you know, everybody's always going to do the, yo, Spotify, what y'all think? Right? Spotify said, well, there's more work to do. We did not participate in any of this stuff. We are not aware manipulated streams are a challenge for the entire industry and a problem that Spotify is working hard to combat. It is important to know that Spotify does not make any payments directly to artists. I'm like, oh man, that's nice. Y'all have a workaround too. We work specifically with the rights holders and distributors, we send them money. So it's not like we're sending money directly back to anybody who's a criminal or anything like that. We're not attached. Beautiful, Spotify, beautiful. And that actually speaks to Spotify not becoming a distributor at some point. Like ball of yogurt. Remember when we kind of like talked about that possibly because they did a merger with, they bought DistroKid or something like that. And people thought for a second, like people were going to be directly uploaded straight to Spotify, all that stuff. They bought a scapegoat. Yeah. They probably did the math and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, money would look great for a second but the liability that had come from it, nah. All right, so it is equally important not to misunderstand the extent of the problem with manipulated streams. Thanks in part to the fact that our payouts are not real time, our systems detect and address anomalies before they reach material levels. We have also improved our identification of artificial streams and develop faster measures to take as soon as we become aware of them. For example, so this is what Spotify is doing. We can withhold payouts. All right, some of y'all might have had that happen before. Adjust streaming statistics down and completely suspend users from the platform. I've talked to some of y'all artists out there who've dealt with the streamings, the fake streams and y'all are like, yo, I had X amount of dollars based on my streams, but all of a sudden when it came to pay time, I didn't get $50,000. They sent me $2,000 and adjusted my stats. That's not adding up. Think about one situation where one guy, unsmartly, are you against it? You should have just went home, bro. You should have stayed quiet. And the next thing you know, he got his account submitted. I'm like, see, bro, we did you a favor by not suspending you and just paying you what you actually own. We're trying to be cool about it. We're trying to lawyer up about your fake streams. Get out of here, bro. So, but there's always more work to do. Our automated processes are manual, monitoring and market leading. I always love that when someone's like, yeah, hey, bro, I know stuff not perfect, but we got the best of the worst. Like, so y'all go talk to them other boys, man. Yeah, but it's like, also you deal with it the most. So it will make sense for you to have the best of them. You would need to, that is a fact. But they have talked about Deezer and all the other platforms, basically. They're using pretty much all these platforms. Less than 1% of all streams on Spotify have been determined to be tampered with. I've seen 3% on other platforms in other articles. The thing is though, they specifically noted, these are the ones that we can determine. All right, that doesn't mean it's only 3% of streams. These are just the ones that we can determine with our limited measures of being able to determine. I think the number is probably, I would say about 15%. Yeah, I was thinking at least 10, because they're also not gonna throw like their label partners under the bus, right? So to make the number accurate, you have to start throwing certain stakeholders under the bus. It's so hard to just knock out all the criminals. You can make stuff airtight, but if I make it airtight, I might be blocking out my partners over here. How do I navigate both waters? It's murky. Yeah, because if I'm Swedish gangster number one, I'm gonna argue, like, well, I gotta go to jail and Lira Cohen's still walking around. You know what I'm saying? Like, it don't make sense. He don't make one way out of this shit than me. See, but that's why they get you for something else, right? It's like, I'm not gonna get you for killing person one, two, and three. I'm gonna get you for tax evasion, you know what I'm saying? We will get you on the Rico. But that's what's happening right now. Spotify is being used as a money laundering space. Again, yet again. And it's gonna continue to happen. If anything from the last three minutes of the conversation, you should see that there's very little hope. But to at least know can be useful. But now it sucks because of the way the system works for real pro-rata system where people are being paid off of their percentage of the collective streams. It really does take money out of the artist's pocket. If it's me, you and Chirante, and then we all get paid. I got a million streams, but if you get five million streams, all fake streams, that lowers my percentage. So yes, I got a million, but the percentage of that is, I don't know, whatever, you know how the math works out. Y'all get the point. The proportion is smaller, which determines everything. So, artist, there's no solution right now because Spotify doesn't have any solution. All I can say is we know that Spotify is a nice way to get some money. It's marketing, but that's not where you're gonna get your big money. That's it. I think Spotify was embracing that, you know what I'm saying? I think that's why they're starting to be so late. I'm like, hey man, we'll give you the merch tab. You know, we're gonna let you connect to your Instagram and your Twitter so people can go somewhere else. Get out of here. We put your conscience on the bottom of what more do you want from me? What do you want? What do you want from me? Oh man, that is yet another clip with no labels necessary. Put a comment in the bottom. What do you think? And subscribe if you ain't yet. Peace. Peace. Appreciate you for watching. If you like content like this, you'll love seeing our music marketing strategies that we use as an agency to actually blow up artists to millions and even billions of streams that are available for free at nolabelsnecessary.com and the cool part about it that's gonna really make you love it is we don't have to be all entertaining and add all this fluff just to get some views that we do on YouTube. We get straight to the information. There's play by play in courses that give you a breakdown of every step that you should do to get success. And you have the ability to have communication with us. We get on live talks, a lot of cool things for members and it's free just to hop in. So check it out right now at nolabelsnecessary.com.