fabricated characters to incubate Internet celebrities, designed plots, claimed to help farmers, and many Internet celebrities with millions of fans were sentenced

The province's first case of "Internet celebrity economy" chaos project

"A pure woman strayed into the depths of Daliang Mountain, met a handsome and simple country guy, and warmly invited her to her home as a guest..."In August 2022, the video of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu's "chance encounter" quickly became popular on the Internet, and the number of followers of both accounts exceeded 8 million. Since then, the two began to frequently live broadcast goods, opening a "beautiful story of helping farmers and starting a business".

However, behind this is a gray industrial chain of counterfeiting and selling counterfeits that create fake personas to incubate Internet celebrities, shoot videos through compiling plots, and then monetize the supply flow of back-end agricultural products.

On September 9 this year, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, held a press conference to report the Internet celebrity live broadcast case with "Qubu" and "Zhao Linger" as the main delegation, which was the first case of "Internet celebrity economy" chaos in the province cracked by the Liangshan police. Under the banners of "helping farmers" and "high-quality original ecology", the team sold counterfeit Daliangshan agricultural products to more than 20 provinces across the country, with sales exceeding 20 million. In July 2023, a number of suspects were approved for arrest on suspicion of counterfeiting registered trademarks and false advertising.

On December 2023, 12, a reporter from Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star News learned that on December 29, the People's Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture pronounced the first-instance verdict on the case, and 12 people, including Zhang, the legal representative of the company involved, Zhao (Zhao Linger), and A Ri (Qu Bu), were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 28 months to 9 years and 8 months.

In front of the camera

A "chance encounter" in the depths of the mountains

On August 2022, 8, Zhao Linger posted a video on a short video platform, telling about her "encounter" with the simple and handsome Yi youth Qu Bu in a remote mountain village in Liangshan, and warmly invited him to her home as a guest. The "chance encounter" video made the two popular on the Internet overnight. They said: "There is no team, let alone the capital and packaging of large companies that everyone says..."

Behind the camera

A chain of counterfeit production and sale of counterfeit ash

In July 2022, Zhang established an MCN agency to look for "Internet celebrity seedlings" for incubation. Through well-designed scripts and words, arranging innocent and kind images, and releasing plots such as "chance encounters", "entrepreneurship" and "helping farmers", the two accounts of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu have more than 7 million fans. They selected uninhabited production houses, broken walls, etc. as the background of the live broadcast, and purchased agricultural and sideline products from other places at low prices and counterfeit agricultural products of Daliangshan, with sales exceeding 200 million yuan.

Popular

Two anchors "encountered" in the mountains

23-year-old Qu Bu and 27-year-old Zhao Linger are a young man and woman from Liangshan. The popularity of the two stems from a short video of a "chance encounter": On August 2022, 8, Zhao Linger posted a video on a short video platform, telling the story of her "encounter" with the simple and handsome Yi youth Qu Bu in a remote mountain village in Liangshan, and warmly invited him to her home as a guest.

It was this "chance encounter" video that made Qu Bu and Zhao Linger popular on the Internet overnight, and they have been on the platform's hot search list many times. In the face of netizens' doubts, Zhao Linger once released a video response saying that she and Qu Bu met by chance, just to record rural life, "There is no team, let alone the packaging of capital and large companies that everyone says..."

Soon after becoming popular, the two began to frequently live broadcast to bring goods, mainly selling walnuts, honey and other agricultural products. The reporter noticed that before the case, Zhao Linger's video account had 272.216 million followers and 2022.9 million Qubu fans. From September 2023 to May 5, Zhao Linger and Qu Bu opened more than 40 live broadcasts to bring goods.

In a video of the two of them bringing goods live, Zhao Linger claimed: "This honey is really not expensive for 98 yuan, and the walnuts are really the walnuts of our Daliangshan." Qubu and I will not do anything that violates our conscience, we are real. In just one minute, more than 2000,<> catties of walnuts were swept away by netizens.

However, there is a little-known secret behind this... In May 2023, the Liangshan Public Security Bureau received a notice from the State Market Supervision Bureau that it was found that the Internet celebrities Liangshan Qubu and Zhao Linger had made false propaganda in the process of live broadcasting, and the amount involved was huge, and they were suspected of committing crimes. After receiving the clues, the public security organs quickly set up a special case group to carry out investigations.

harvest

The screenwriter of the MCN agency involved more than 10 million yuan

With the in-depth investigation of the police of the Zhaojue County Public Security Bureau in Liangshan, a gray industrial chain of counterfeiting and selling has surfaced. After investigation, Zhang established Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd. (MCN agency) for the purpose of incubating Internet celebrities and bringing goods through live broadcasts. In July 2022, Zhang went deep into Liangshan to look for local "Internet celebrity seedlings" such as individual industrial and commercial households Zhao (Zhao Linger) and young A Ri (Qubu) and began to carefully incubate.

The police handling the case told the Red Star News reporter that Zhang arranged the innocent and kind "heroine" and "hero" images for the two through well-designed scripts and words, and released short videos of plots such as "chance encounter", "entrepreneurship" and "helping farmers" to attract attention, and incubated two Internet celebrity accounts of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu, with more than 200 million fans.

Under the banners of "helping farmers" and "high-quality original ecology", the team purchased honey, walnuts and other agricultural and sideline products from food companies in Chengdu, Nanjing and other places at low prices for live broadcasting, and sold counterfeit Daliangshan agricultural products to more than 20 provinces across the country, with sales of more than <> million yuan, forming a gray industrial chain.

Gumo Village, Tebulo Township, Zhaojue County, Liangshan, is the place where Zhao Linger and Qu Bu filmed the video. Recently, local villagers told reporters that in the second half of last year, a group of people who took videos and did live broadcasts came to the village, claiming to be here to help them sell agricultural products, including Zhao Linger and Qu Bu. They sometimes invite villagers to shoot with them and give them something or money.

"When they came, they looked for old houses everywhere in the mountains to shoot. After these houses were relocated to new houses, they were abandoned and uninhabited. Villager Hailai Haqu recalled that the people who shot the video rarely communicated with the villagers, "One day the lights suddenly turned on in the old house where no one lived, and I realized that they were filming live video there." ”

Crime

The account of "fake agricultural assistance" was permanently banned

The reporter learned from the interview that almost all of the more than 2,9 catties of honey and more than 4,<> catties of walnuts involved in the case of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu were purchased at low prices, shoddy and sold at high prices, and only a very small number of original ecological high-quality products really came from Liangshan. According to the team's supply producer, Guo, "A small amount of honey was purchased from Gumo Village, Zhaojue County, just to obtain a local certificate of origin, proving that the origin comes from Daliang Mountain. ”

The story is false, the help to farmers is false, and it is true to deceive consumers to make illegal profits. According to the police handling the case, the foreign honey sold by the team, a bottle of 500 grams, was purchased at a low-cost price, and each bottle was sold for 98 yuan after being labeled with the original ecological label of Daliangshan, which can be said to be a huge profit. In just a few months, the company operated by Zhang has achieved illegal profits of more than 300 million yuan, and the illegal income of Internet celebrity anchors Zhao Linger and Qu Bu has exceeded 70,<> yuan.

The reporter learned that in July 2023, the People's Procuratorate of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture, approved the arrest of Zhang, the legal representative of Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd., the operator Shuai and Xu, the Internet celebrity anchors Zhao, A Ri, Shi Yi, Zhong, and Guo, the supplier of counterfeit goods, on suspicion of counterfeiting registered trademarks and false advertising.

At present, the relevant accounts involved in the case have been banned.

It is reported that since the beginning of this year, Liangshan has dealt with 346 illegal accounts, permanently closed 82 accounts such as "Yunnan Bobo" and "Mountain Village Old Man" who "put up a miserable auction", and permanently closed 15 accounts such as "Zhao Linger", "Qubu" and "Liangshan Mengyang" who "falsely helped farmers", including 200 accounts with more than 5 million fans.

On December 12, the reporter interviewed and learned about the latest progress of the case, on December 29, the Liangshan Zhaojue County People's Court pronounced the first-instance verdict of the case in accordance with the law, and Zhang, the legal representative of Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd., was sentenced to 12 years and 28 months in prison and fined 3,2 yuan; Guo was sentenced to 25 years in prison and fined 3,20 yuan for the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks; Internet celebrity anchors Zhao (Zhao Ling'er), A Ri (Qu Bu), Shi Yi, Zhong, Shuai, Xu and others committed the crime of false advertising, and were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 8 months to 10 months and fines ranging from 2,10 yuan to <>,<> yuan. (Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star News reporter Jiang Long)