Update: walker accused of allegedly stealing $1k from skin lending community
On October 3rd, 2023, allegations emerged that former Reason player Walker "walker" Harris had allegedly stolen around $1,000 worth of Counter-Strike skins from multiple lenders in the niche skin lending community. The allegations, as first brought forward by "notojo", claim that walker asked to borrow five skins from lenders on the proviso he would return said skins to the lenders upon request. However, per evidence presented by notojo and others, it appears that on October 2nd walker sold the skins to a third party— former teammate Kevin "consti" Yi.
Dust2.us has investigated these claims, communicating with multiple parties to understand the circumstances that led these "skin lenders" to give walker these expensive skins and to ascertain whether walker owned such skins and then sold them to consti without the permission of lenders.
The allegations against walker come from a relatively niche sector of the Counter-Strike skins community— skin lenders. These individuals, according to notojo, whom Dust2.us talked to, are the owners of expensive and rare skins that they lend out to players and other community members for the purpose of showing them off. As an example, Skins4Pros, lent expensive skins to pro players for the IEM Cologne 2023 Play-in, as seen below:
notojo explained that this was formed by a group of traders that rarely play the game, but wanted ways to show off their rare in-game collectables. Additionally, for some traders lending skins is a way to bring attention to and appreciate the value of skins. For example, notojo explained that the AWP Graphite used by Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut to claim the final kill at the BLAST.tv Paris Major was sold with a hefty premium.
This community apparently runs on a mixture of being invite-only and on the honor system, with walker's alleged sale being the first breach of trust after "thousands of items lent," according to notojo.
The willingness of these lenders to give skins away to walker apparently comes after walker had been an upstanding member of the skin lending community for some time, with notojo having previously personally lent walker around $1,200 worth of skins without issue.
As such, walker's sudden decision to allegedly sell these skins on to consti raised eyebrows in the community, along with the fact that in the leadup to selling them, walker allegedly asked a number of traders to lend him skins. For example, skins trader Apinya showed Steam chat logs of walker soliciting them for skins on September 25th:
With the background of the accusations laid, determining whether the skins left walker's inventory is a relatively trivial process. Based on previous HLTV match history, we can determine these accounts, for walker and consti, are their legitimate accounts used for professional play. Then, using a website like CSFloat it can be determined that five skins, listed below, went into walker's inventory from September 6th to September 26th and then sent to consti from October 2nd to October 3rd. We can also see on the ownership history that all of these skins previously belonged to known skin lenders pointed out by notojo to Dust2.us.
The full list of skins sent from walker to consti consists of:
With all this evidence in hand, Dust2.us reached out consti to ask him about the skins he recently received from walker. consti was incredibly transparent with Dust2.us about where he got the skins from, saying he paid walker for them, however he made sure to note he had no idea they were stolen from traders or lenders. As such, after learning the skins were stolen, consti got in touch with the owners to confirm they were stolen and would like to return them if possible. However, he says the whole situation has put him in a bind as he already sent walker the money and would need the money back to secure he's not out $1k on the deal.
As such, he has been attempting to get ahold of walker to try and get the money back and to put this whole thing behind him. Unfortunately, this has not proven easy for any of the parties as walker has not responded to any messages for some time. Dust2.us attempted on multiple occasions to reach out to walker for comment, however he did not respond by the time of publication.
While there are many pieces of evidence stacked against walker, many also told Dust2.us how out of character this was for the Canadian player and that they believed he was an upstanding member of the community. Dust2.us will update this story with walker's perspective and explanation should he reply in the future.
Update: An earlier version of this article suggested walker was lent skins by Skins4Pros and was a nember of the skin lending group. While walker was lent skins by individual members of the community, he was not a member of the community nor done under its auspices. Dust2.us regrets the error.
