China online racket using fake ethnic minority influencers to peddle bogus sob stories broken up by police
- One woman racketeer pretends to be orphan who raised siblings
- Amasses nearly 4 million followers before online sleuths, police snare her
A sophisticated fake online followers racket has been broken up by police in China, landing eight fraudsters in jail.
Police in the southwestern province of Sichuan Chinese uncovered the fraud after people online expressed doubts about the story of a young woman who had amassed nearly 4 million followers by faking a story about her being from an ethnic minority and having a difficult life.
The 21-year-old, who used the pseudonym “Liangshan Mengyang”, said she came from the impoverished and mountainous Liangshan region in Sichuan and claimed she had raised her siblings herself after the death of her parents.
She said she sold “organic mountain products” to make money and posted videos of herself in ragged clothes in front of a crumbling home, projecting a narrative of tragedy while facing life with a smile.
She rose to fame in 2018 and eventually amassed 3.86 million followers.
Liangshan Mengyang’s narrative endeared her to many online and she quickly leveraged her follower count to venture into live streaming selling “local specialities” such as walnuts, edible bird’s nest and safflower from her “homeland”.