The video was made by a popular video game commentator on Bilibili, China's equivalent of YouTube. The same video also shows parts of the official Cheat Ninja website. That website included a link to a Telegram channel where Cheat Ninja announced on January 23-three days after the Chinese authorities arrested Catfish's colleagues-that it was pausing service "due to the ongoing legal issues with Tencent."Ī screenshot of that announcement appears in a video shared by Tencent on its official account on Weibo, one of China's most popular social networks. The two were accused of being responsible for the finances and day-to-day operation of the organization, including distributing profits, collecting money, and communicating with Catfish, according to the authorities.īut Catfish said he is the mind and the lead developer behind the video game cheating empire, and his story offers a rare glimpse into an otherwise secretive world-the quasi-illegal multi-million dollar industry of video game cheats.Ĭatfish, an alias Motherboard granted the developer because he is still wanted by the police, verified he is the main developer and leader of the cheat organization, which he branded Cheat Ninja, by showing he had control of several domains used by the group, including. Wang owned luxury cars worth around $3 million-including a Ferrari and a Lamborghini-and a stash of Bitcoin worth around $4 million, despite the fact that his day job only paid him $462 a month, according to the police. "We were the best cheat for the most popular game"Īt the beginning of April, the police accused Catfish's two salespeople, whom it identified only by the names He and Wang, of being part of the " world's largest" video game cheating ring, which authorities refer to as "Chicken Drumstick." The organization raked in $77 million from selling cheats, according to the cops. "Although I never disclosed personal info to I actually always thought they were kind of invincible and never thought that they could get arrested." "I know the cops were on to my organization for a long time," Catfish told Motherboard. The arrests of two of his closest collaborators hit much closer to home, and forced him to shut down the whole organization and lay low.
But those were just resellers, according to Catfish. Last year, authorities had already arrested 10 other people associated with the cheating organization. "I've gotten used to being on the Chinese news," Catfish said. The arrests were the last salvo in a nearly year-long investigation started in March 2020, when Tencent reported Catfish's website to the authorities, according to the Kunshan Police. "Then I just drove to a place a few miles away and dropped them off there."Īs it turns out, IIIIIIIII and the other salesperson had been arrested-on January 20 and January 12, respectively-by Chinese police working with Tencent, the giant Chinese technology company and PUBG Mobile's publisher. "I was so panicked that I also hammered every single visible chip in ," he said. At first, Catfish was confused, because his colleagues usually gave him advance notice if they were not going to be available to work, but "after I connected the dots I absolutely panicked," he said.Ĭatfish said he then wiped the servers he used to maintain and run his cheats, and used "a good old hammer" to destroy all his hard disks "that could possibly contain cheat-related stuff."
0 kommentar(er)
