In February this year, the Fengxian Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau received a report from Aunt Zhou, a resident in the area, saying that in October last year, she saw someone selling courses in a live broadcast room on a certain platform, claiming that after learning, she could run a store on the short video platform and earn a monthly income easily. million, and promises that after purchasing the course, it can be packaged and pushed to a large number of fans. The first course costs 2,580 yuan to get 1,000 fans and opens the platform’s “show window” function, and the second course costs 7,999 yuan to get 15,000 fans. Aunt Zhou was moved by
's words. After bargaining, she transferred more than 9,000 yuan to the other company, which was not a small sum for Aunt Zhou who worked as a housekeeper. However, Aunt Zhou followed the other party's step-by-step guidance, listened to the course and opened a store on the short video platform, but found that she could not make money. She felt cheated and reported the case to the public security agency.
Screenshot of the company’s external publicity video. Photo courtesy of Shanghai police
After receiving the report, Fengxian police immediately launched an investigation. Starting from relevant chat records, transfer records, short video website records and other clues, the police quickly identified a training institution named "Yanjun Technology Co., Ltd." as suspected of major fraud through comprehensive research and analysis, and further sorted out and mastered the company. The internal structure, personnel information, business division of labor, etc. have been fixed with a large amount of peripheral evidence. In early March, with the support of the local public security organs, Fengxian police organized police forces and successfully arrested 20 gang members including Lu, Zhang, and Chen in an office building in another province or city.
After investigation, starting from April 2023, "Yanjun Technology Co., Ltd." run by Lu and others published false advertisements on the Internet platform for "elderly editing courses, no threshold, 0 yuan learning", offering 0 yuan to learn editing courses, It uses gimmicks such as pushing targeted shopping fans and making short videos to bring goods to earn high profits to attract the attention of middle-aged and elderly people. At the same time, the gang also sells live courses on short video platforms every week. By showing screenshots of false profits and asking people to tell false success stories on the spot, it creates false prospects of high profits and attracts victims to buy so-called training courses.
In fact, these so-called training courses are all self-recorded videos that gang members copied from the Internet. They are not systematic at all and have no learning value. The so-called increase in fans from the package is just "zombie fans" purchased by the company, which will not generate purchase volume at all. Even these inferior courses and "zombie fans" are just perfunctory actions of the gang members when the victim purchases the first course. Once the victim gets deeper into the situation and spends huge sums of money to purchase the second course, the gang members will no longer Courses are distributed and no “zombie fans” are given.
Zhang Wentao, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Fengxian Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, reminded that formal education and training institutions often do not guarantee that "learning will make a profit and gain", but fraud gangs will use false guarantees as a cover. At present, all 20 criminal suspects of the gang have been taken criminal compulsory measures by Fengxian police in accordance with the law, and the case is under further investigation.
Interview and writing: Nandu reporter Zhao Weijia from Shanghai
