Police seize 26,000 phones used to fake viewership in livestream sales

Police in Anhui province have seized about 26,000 mobile phones that were being employed to fabricate fake audiences and viewership in order to deceive viewers into purchasing products through livestream sales channels. Authorities have apprehended 24 individuals linked to this fraudulent scheme.

The police in Suzhou city, Anhui, revealed in a recent social media post that the suspects have been acquiring large quantities of smartphones since last year. They used advanced technology to modify these phones, enabling simultaneous manipulation on a massive scale.

Upon receiving orders from livestream session hosts, the suspects would employ these tampered phones to tune into the designated channels, where they would actively interact with the hosts. This created the illusion of channel popularity and high-quality products, subsequently enticing consumers to place orders.

Accompanying the police post was a video showing a room in Suzhou's Dangshan county filled with shelves, each stocked with hundreds of phones displaying identical or similar livestream channels. Cables and power sockets were installed behind the phones, and fans were used to dissipate heat.

The police disclosed that, after three months of intensive investigations, they dismantled 13 such dens on Sept 30. The detainees are suspected of generating misleading information, engaging in illegal promotion, and disrupting market order. The financial scale of their activities is estimated at around 9 million yuan ($1.23 million). Further investigations are ongoing.