A man in China was arrested after he used 400 different accounts to enhance his chances of winning giveaways from a streamer.
Ma, who lives in Jiangsu, China, was operating 400 phones in his garage when he was arrested. He was reported to authorities in August after one of his neighbors suspected he was running a scam.
Ma used the hundreds of cell phones to increase his chances of winning gifts from one particular streamer.
Reports state that Ma admitted to using the phones, each linked to different accounts. He then accessed the same livestream with the 400 accounts to win as many “lucky bags” as he could.
The lucky bags were awarded to viewers at the click of a button, making his chances of winning even greater. The bag’s contents were decided by the streamer who gifted them to their viewers.
Ma made up to $2,800 a month from scam
At the time of his arrest, Ma had been making up to $2,800 a month from his scheme. He also won other items like printers, low-budget necessities and iPhones, which he sold.
What made his operation illegal was how he knowingly refused to insert a SIM card into each phone he used.
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Local law requires SIM cards when registering new accounts on Chinese social media platforms. However, Ma purchased existing accounts from others online.
These accounts contained personal information about those they belonged to, prompting the police to charge Ma with infringing on the personal information of others.
Ma could face up to three years in jail for his scam operation, including a fine.
This December, another man from China was arrested for operating a scheme that involved his daughter. The man, who has 400k followers on Chinese social media platforms, posed as a food delivery driver despite not being employed.
He would bring his daughter on deliveries and convince customers they had been abandoned by the child’s mother in hopes of receiving more tips from sympathetic buyers.
