On December 28, the People's Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan, Sichuan announced the first instance verdict. Nine people including Zhang, the legal representative of the Internet celebrity company, Zhao (Zhao Ling'er), Ari (Qubu) and other Internet celebrity anchors were sentenced to 8 months each. Fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 3 years to 2 months.
Internet celebrity anchors Zhao Linger and Qu Bu sold honey during the live broadcast. (Chengdu Business Daily)
In August 2022, the video of Zhao Ling'er and Qu Bu's "accidental encounter" quickly became popular on the Internet, and the number of fans on their accounts exceeded 2 million. After that, the two began to live broadcast frequently to bring goods, starting a "beautiful story" that seemed full of positive energy to help farmers and start a business.
However, behind this lies a gray industrial chain of manufacturing and selling counterfeit goods, which involves creating fake personas, incubating Internet celebrities, compiling plots and shooting videos, and then monetizing back-end agricultural product supply traffic. On September 20, 2023, Liangshan Prefecture of Sichuan Province held a press conference to report the case of live streaming of goods by Internet celebrities with "Qu Bu" and "Zhao Ling'er" as the main representative teams. This is the first case of "Internet celebrities" cracked by Liangshan police in the province. Economic Chaos Project.
Under the banners of "helping farmers" and "high-quality original ecology", this team sold fake Daliangshan agricultural specialties to more than 20 provinces across the country, with sales exceeding 10 million.
In just a few months, Zhang, the owner of the Internet celebrity company behind the team, made illegal profits of more than 3 million yuan, and the illegal income of the two anchors was more than 700,000 yuan.
In July 2023, Zhang and many other suspects were arrested on suspicion of counterfeiting registered trademarks and false advertising.
source | Chengdu Business Daily
