In 2009, Chongqing police discovered a case of obscene performances organized by a large network and named the case "071".
In August of the same year, police entered a local hotel where they found dozens of scantily clad girls video chatting with customers on computer screens.
But their job is not just to video chat with customers, but also to serve more deeply.
Two months later, the girls' bosses were arrested and sentenced to six years in prison.
Where are these girls from? Who is their boss and why were they arrested?
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"Engaging" website
In early 2009, when the Hubei police were conducting a daily inspection of the website, a hot website suddenly jumped in front of his eyes.
With the principle of not missing one, he opened the website called "Lilac", and the result was a flood of unsightly adult content pouring into his eyes.
Usually, when you see such a website, the police will only ban it. This time, however, the police were in no hurry to ban the website. Because this "clove" has reached 730 million views, if each person browses it once, half of the people in China have browsed this website.
730 million views may not sound like an exaggeration today, after all, Douyin has more than 700 million daily active users. But in 2009, 730 million views were almost astronomical.
This website immediately received the attention of the police, who named the case "071" and immediately launched an investigation.
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At the beginning of the investigation, the police had a premonition that this time the investigation would not be too smooth, and most of the servers of this type of website would be set up abroad, making it difficult to start. Sure enough, the server of "Lilac" is also overseas, and the difficulty of investigation can be imagined.
But while servers are set up offshore, it is unlikely that these operators will be abroad. So the police are ready to start with the domain name of the website to see if they can find where the owner of the "lilac" is.
But the operators of "Lilac" seem to have long guessed the police's investigation method, their domain name will change every once in a while, one in this city, one in that city, and even a total of more than 380 websites, the police can not accurately locate.
Since it could not be found in a short time, the police began to investigate the content of the website. After all, a 730 million adult website, its content will certainly have clues to explore.
"Lilac" as a high-traffic adult website, its biggest difference from other similar types of websites, is that the pictures in the website are all free. Any customer, as long as they register for an account on the website, can browse the entire content of the website for free.
But then the problem arises.
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"Lilac" has more than 2 million registered members, in order to ensure the retention of these members, daily updates are certain, which requires a lot of human resources. At the same time, the website leases overseas servers, which is a huge expense.
Did the operators of "Lilacs" just "serve" members for free to spread these adult content?
Of course not, there is a complete chain of interests behind the lilac, which is constantly delivering money to its operators.
Cloves are expensive
In order to figure out how Lilac operates, the police began a more in-depth investigation.
The first is that every page of the website is filled with a large number of advertisements for health products and video chats. The benefits that this part of advertising can bring are very considerable, but compared with the cost of lilac operation, it is still a small witch.
Then the police began to pay attention to the fact that the video chat ads, although different, eventually led to the same page, a website called "Passion Video".
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After entering this website, the police finally understood what the operators of lilacs rely on to make money.
Only to see that the website is densely covered with various beautiful female avatars, and every time you click on an avatar, there will be a live broadcast room.
There will be a few seconds of trial time in the live room, and if you want to continue watching, you need to pay for a membership registration.
The price of members spans a lot, if you just want to taste it, then the 2 yuan experience package is enough. And if you are a "local tycoon", then there are thousands, or even tens of thousands of yuan of packages waiting for you.
The police immediately recharged 2 yuan to continue to watch the live broadcast room, and after recharging to become a member, the website also unlocked new functions and interaction with female anchors.
The police simply communicate with the female anchor, and the female anchor will only use a seductive word to attract the police, and there is no other action. At the same time, she will also hint to the police to continue to recharge.
The meaning of female anchors is obvious, if you want to see more "nude" content, then you have to recharge a higher package.
After the recharge package is not finished, the website also has the setting of virtual currency.
These tokens can be used to buy gifts for these female anchors.
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And many female anchors have also carried out a clear price tag, what kind of behavior needs to send how much money to give gifts. Generally speaking, the price of a private performance by a female anchor is about 500 yuan.
Of course, if you "invest" enough, they will also perform some indescribable exaggerations.
This way of operation is nothing more than taking advantage of the curiosity of netizens, using a little temptation to gradually increase the desire of netizens, and then let them fall into it and cannot extricate themselves.
What's even more shocking is that this website is not a timed live broadcast, but a live broadcast site 24 hours a day.
Female anchors do not feel tired for a few hours, and another batch of female anchors will immediately come up, thus forming a cycle.
Different faces, different seductive words, let more than 2 million netizens linger.
According to the police investigation of the website data, the more than 2 million members have accumulated more than 19 million yuan on the website in half a year. The average cost per person is more than 90,000 yuan.
That number is only an average, with a total of more than $19 million, meaning that many people have squandered hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the site.
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By this point, the police had made it clear that free cloves were just a way for them to promote their livestream. Attracting customers with free content and having female anchors after customers click on ads is their main way to make money.
What's more exaggerated is that these female anchors look like one-on-one "services", but in fact, they face dozens, if not hundreds, of customers at the same time, frantically harvesting their property.
Such a frightening operating model made the police realize that the huge chain of interests behind the lilac is likely to have been perfected, and if it is not stopped in time, the consequences will be unimaginable.
The investigation begins
Because the website operators are very cunning and cannot be accurately located by domain names and servers alone, the police can only start with some clues within the website, and the first thing they think of is the advertisement that can guide people to the live page.
After investigation, these small ads came from an advertising agency called Liantong. The advertising agency is mainly engaged in advertising, that is, they use these advertisements to help cloves attract more and more people.
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The police then planned to start with the domain name of Union, but soon encountered difficulties.
Alliance Connect covers more than 150,000 domain names, each of which is constantly changing and difficult to find for a while.
The police first cracked down on several known domains, but because they had too many alternate domains, this method had little effect.
Then the police tried to get a shot from the customer service on the website in order to find a clue to solve the case. However, several customer service calls on the website are either unanswered or empty, and there is no way to communicate.
Just when there was no way to start, the live broadcast screen on the computer screen moved again.
It turned out that a new female anchor "Gentle Continuation" came to the live broadcast room and was tempting members to recharge.
Soon, countless people changed from ordinary members to senior members, frantically buying gifts for female anchors.
It didn't take long for the premium member's thousands of dollars of virtual currency to spend a lot of money, and the girl began to perform at this time.
At the same time, the police also found that customers want to find these websites is actually very simple, just need to use the search engine can be in one step.
It was also at this time that the police had an idea.
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Since starting with domain names, servers, and customer service has not been effective, it is better to investigate the flow of these funds, and there may be unexpected gains.
After the devil was one foot tall and one foot tall, and began to investigate the flow of funds, the police immediately obtained important clues.
The fee and payment of cloves is fully carried out by an online payment platform agent, and the money is first recharged from the pockets of netizens into the online payment platform, and then transferred by the online payment platform to the account of the clove operator.
Despite this clue, the police did not rush into action.
Because the police have only found this online payment platform so far, they do not know anything about the operator behind Lilac. If you act rashly, it will only hit the grass and snake.
So the police first began to investigate the account where the funds flowed in, and soon found that behind the account were several companies in Chongqing.
The legal person behind one of the websites turned out to be an Internet singer and established a highly well-known music website.
This person's name is Zheng Li, and he was once the driving force behind the singer Yang Chengang, who owns classic songs such as "Mouse Loves Rice".
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However, after this Zheng Li has Yang Chengang and other well-known singers, his value has exceeded 100 million, unlike people who will make profits through adult websites?
The police immediately began to investigate several companies to which the account belonged, as well as Zheng Li.
Soon, the police found that in Chongqing, Zheng Li rented the second floor of a hotel as the headquarters of their network company.
After organizing the manpower, the police launched a surprise inspection in August 2009, targeting the hotel.
Then came the opening paragraph of the article, where the police arrested more than a dozen female anchors suspected of spreading adult content.
After questioning the female anchors, the police learned. The Lilac website is not only profitable by young and beautiful girls, in order to get more revenue, they even specially developed a set of words and movements, and will carry out rigorous training before girls take up their jobs.
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After the official induction, if there is a problem with the girl's words and deeds, she will be deducted a large amount of salary by the supervisor.
The police arrested nearly 50 female anchors in the hotel, and the police also learned from the mouth of one of the girls that their supervisor's name was He Jia.
With the name, the police can finally start to peel back the cocoon and pick out all the beneficiaries behind the cloves little by little.
After catching He Jia, the police were a little surprised. He Jia, who is in charge, is not a man who is five years old and three thick, but a woman who is not yet 30 years old.
From her mouth, the police learned that most female anchors are recruited from online job advertisements, and she can get a salary of about 20,000 yuan per month without coming forward, while the salaries of female anchors range from 3,000 to 30,000.
When the police asked if they knew they were engaged in illegal and criminal activities, He Jia shook his head repeatedly: "When I was training, I strictly prohibited these things, and they all wanted to make money to do this." ”
Such a lie was naturally impossible for the police to believe, and immediately sent He Jia to the police station. When she learned that she was involved in a larger amount of money and may face a heavier trial, He Jia immediately said the administrator behind her, Liu Junsong.
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It didn't take long for Liu Junsong to be arrested. In the face of the police's ironclad evidence, he also honestly confessed: "There are three bosses, one of whom is Zheng Li." ”
Of the 19 million yuan of revenue, He Jia and other female anchors only accounted for more than 5 million, and the rest of the money was in the hands of these "bosses".
So why did Zheng Li, the founder of this well-known music website, do this?
It turned out that Zheng Li's music website was on the verge of bankruptcy as early as 2008 because of its careless operation, but this website continues to operate until now. The way to bring this music site back to life is "Lilac" and the live broadcast behind it.
A few days later, the time came to September, and the police arrested Zheng Li, Dai Zeyan and Gong Zhaowei within a week.
The evidence is overwhelming, and Zheng Li and others can only admit guilt.
In addition to these three bosses, the police also arrested Li, Du, Wang and other website operators in Zhengzhou and other places.
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During questioning afterwards, Zheng Li told the police. He originally wanted to attract customers to chat with beautiful women through one-on-one live broadcasting to get profits.
However, after operating for a while, the girls began to use adult performances to seduce customers in order to obtain greater benefits. They also fell into the vortex of desire and embarked on this road of breaking the law and committing crimes.
Such a statement is, of course, a hoax, just a claim to excuse oneself. From the fact that he uses the "lilac" surface of free adult content to attract customers, it is already clear about his wolf ambitions.
At the same time, the police learned that they did not get much profit of 19 million, the third-party platform took part of it, the advertising company took part of it, plus the money distributed to the female anchors, and finally reached them only more than 5 million yuan.
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But no matter what, the illegal and criminal acts of Zheng Li and others have been confirmed. In the end, several bosses, including Zheng Li, were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 6 years to 5 years, and the amount of fines was also about 400,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, and the remaining few people were also sentenced to about 2 years and 6 months in prison.
This extraordinarily large case, which was named "071", was the largest obscene performance case that the police investigated and cracked around 2008.
The beautiful "lilac" eventually withered under the relentless pursuit of the police, and the hundreds of websites connected to the lilac disappeared.
Zheng Li was once a successful musician, but in the end he embarked on the wrong path because of his desire, in a vain attempt to profit from pornography, and eventually sent himself to prison.
It's just that the contrast between the musicians who once launched several popular singers and the undermates who entered prison for spreading yellow poison today is really lamentable. If he could have been honest and did his duty, would his ending still be like this?