Welcome back to another edition of the Wednesday Whisper – all freshened up after a week off for the Christmas break. Each Wednesday, our midweek column talks about a rumour or story circulating in the dance music world – notably the types that are just a little bit too hot for our lawyers.

Right, on we go to the first rumour of 2024. Which DJ in the world of techno is suspected of having an arrangement that could literally be called criminal? From what we understand, he has links to the Mafia, of all people – and they certainly make the most of their link to him.

The arrangement roughly works like this. The mafia helps to promote the event, usually ones with a minimum attendance of 10,000 people – they have various fronts set up in order to give the appearance of legitimacy. The DJ is also paid a very substantial amount of money to put on a minimum number of parties – Ears To The House understands that the fee in question is around the $100,000 mark each time.

The DJ in question also gets access to a substantial number of personal benefits, including as many sex workers as he desires. Indeed, one alleged penchant for the techno DJ is snorting a line of cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute before or shortly after playing his set.

So what’s the benefit for the mafia of doing all this? Well, it certainly isn’t that they get to listen to techno music – it’s so they can control the drug supply at the event and also as a convenient front for money laundering, probably on an international scale. The DJs playing alongside him are unaware that anything is amiss…