Kai Cenat responds to ridiculous “money laundering” claims after hitting 90k Twitch subs

Kai Cenat is now the most subscribed English-speaking Twitch streamer, fast approaching 100,000 active subscriptions. However, success often breeds negativity, and he is now having to bat away downright bizarre accusations of being involved in a money laundering scheme.

As he soared past 90,000 subscribers, only days after reaching 80,000, Kai Cenat’s rise on Twitch started to reach a new audience – namely the Twitch community on Twitter and Reddit.

With some not really aware of Cenat or his channel, there were some doubters who began to question his incredible numbers. Admittedly, almost half of the subscriptions are gifted, rather than individuals buying their own sub, according to Twitch Tracker.

On top of that, due to regional pricing, it is markedly cheaper to give subscriptions from certain countries, such as Turkey, where the price in US dollar terms is closer to $0.50 than $5.

But, despite these facts, one rumor began to spread around comment sections, with users questioning if all those gifted subs were part of some elaborate money laundering scheme.

Kai Cenat mocks “money laundering” claims

Reacting to the comments made on a Reddit thread on the LivestreamFail subreddit, Kai said, “Hey, LSF, big fan. But first of all, I don’t even know what laundering means.

“No I’m not sending him back the money, to do… some sh*t. Y’all are too deep in. He’s just a friend who’s gifting. I literally tell him to stop and he remains going. Would you like to see our DMs?” he concludes, as he raises his hands in surrender.

Some of the speculators surmised that a criminal could gift subs to a streamer, and the streamer could then send that money back to said devious criminal in order to clean the illegal proceeds somehow.

Of course, there are obvious holes in this theory. For one, Twitch takes half of all sub money, immediately making it a rather useless method to launder cash. Kai would also have to pay tax on the earnings, and then send the remainder to the criminal – who would presumably then need to launder the money again.

Clearly, this would be a rather ineffective method of money laundering. However, it’s actually not unheard of for criminals to launder ill-gotten gains through Twitch.

In May, 18 people were arrested in Turkey as part of a raid on a criminal organization suspected of laundering up to $10 million through Twitch, specifically using the ‘bits’ donation feature. In this case, It is alleged that the scammers would collaborate with Twitch streamers and send them bits using stolen credit cards, and then receive cash in return.