"A pure woman strayed into the depths of Daliang Mountain, met a handsome and simple country guy, and warmly invited her to her home as a guest......" In August 2022, the video of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu's "chance encounter" quickly became popular on the Internet, and the number of followers of both accounts exceeded 2 million. Since then, the two have begun to frequently live broadcast the road of bringing goods, opening a "beautiful story" that seems to be full of positive energy to help farmers and start a business.
However, behind this is a gray industrial chain of counterfeiting and selling counterfeits by creating fake personas to incubate Internet celebrities, compiling plots and shooting videos, and then realizing the supply and flow of back-end agricultural products.
On September 20 this year, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, held a press conference to report the Internet celebrity live broadcast case with "Qubu" and "Zhao Linger" as the main delegation, which was the first case of "Internet celebrity economy" chaos in the province cracked by the Liangshan police.
Under the banners of "helping farmers" and "high-quality original ecology", the team sold counterfeit Daliangshan agricultural products to more than 20 provinces across the country, with sales exceeding 10 million. In just a few months, Zhang, the owner of the Internet celebrity company behind the team, made illegal profits of more than 3 million yuan, and the illegal income of the two anchors was more than 700,000 yuan. In July 2023, on suspicion of counterfeiting registered trademarks and false advertising, Zhang and other suspects were approved for arrest.
On December 29, 2023, a Red Star News reporter learned from an interview that on December 28, the People's Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture pronounced the first-instance verdict on the case, and 9 people, including Zhang, the legal representative of the company involved, Zhao Mou (Zhao Linger), and A Ri Moumou (Qu Bu), were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 8 months to 3 years and 2 months.
Popular:
Two anchors "encountered" in the mountains
once responded that there was no company packaging, and the account had more than 2 million fans
23-year-old Qu Bu and 27-year-old Zhao Linger are a young man and woman from Liangshan. The popularity of the two stems from a short video of a "chance encounter": On August 19, 2022, Zhao Linger posted a video on a short video platform, telling the story of her "encounter" with the simple and handsome Yi youth Qu Bu in a remote mountain village in Liangshan, and warmly invited him to her home as a guest.
It was this "chance encounter" video that made Qu Bu and Zhao Linger popular on the Internet overnight, and they have been on the platform's hot search list many times. In the face of netizens' questions, Zhao Linger once released a video in response, saying that she and Qu Bu met by chance, just to record rural life, "there is no team, let alone the packaging ...... of capital and large companies that everyone says"
Soon after becoming popular, the two began to frequently live broadcast to bring goods, mainly selling walnuts, honey and other agricultural products. The Red Star News reporter noticed that as of the time of the case, Zhao Linger's video account had 2.72 million followers and 2.16 million Qubu fans. From September 2022 to May 2023, Zhao Linger and Qu Bu will open more than 40 live broadcasts.
In a video of the two of them bringing goods live, Zhao Linger claimed: "This honey is really not expensive for 98 yuan, and the walnuts are really the walnuts of our Daliangshan." Qubu and I will not do anything that violates our conscience, we are real. In just one minute, more than 2,000 catties of walnuts were swept away by netizens.
Internet celebrity anchors Zhao Linger and Qu Bu sell honey in the live broadcast
However, there is a little-known secret behind this...... In May 2023, the Liangshan Public Security Bureau received a notice from the State Market Supervision Bureau that it was found that the Internet celebrities Liangshan Qubu and Zhao Linger had made false propaganda in the process of live broadcasting, and the amount involved was huge, and they were suspected of committing a crime. After receiving the clues, the public security organs quickly set up a special case group to carry out investigations.
Revelation:
MCN institutions are looking for "Internet celebrity seedlings" to incubate
The design script harvested traffic and realized, involving more than 10 million yuan
With the in-depth investigation of the police of the Zhaojue County Public Security Bureau in Liangshan, a gray industrial chain of counterfeiting and selling has surfaced. After investigation, Zhang established Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd. (MCN agency) for the purpose of incubating Internet celebrities and bringing goods through live broadcasts. In July 2022, Zhang went deep into Liangshan to look for local "Internet celebrity seedlings" such as individual industrial and commercial households Zhao (Zhao Linger) and young A Ri (Qubu) and began to carefully incubate.
The police handling the case told the Red Star News reporter that Zhang arranged the innocent and kind "heroine" and "male protagonist" images for the two through well-designed scripts and words, and released short videos of plots such as "chance encounter", "entrepreneurship" and "helping farmers" to attract attention, and incubated two Internet celebrity accounts of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu, with more than 2 million fans.
Before the case, the anchor Zhao Linger and Qu Bu both had more than 2 million fans
Under the banners of "helping farmers" and "high-quality original ecology", the team purchased honey, walnuts and other agricultural and sideline products from food companies in Chengdu, Nanjing and other places at low prices for live broadcasting, and sold counterfeit Daliangshan agricultural products to more than 20 provinces across the country, with sales of more than 10 million yuan, forming a gray industrial chain.
Gumo Village, Tebulo Township, Zhaojue County, Liangshan, is the place where Zhao Linger and Qu Bu filmed the video. Recently, local villagers told the Red Star News reporter that in the second half of last year, a group of people who took videos and did live broadcasts came to the village, claiming to be here to help them sell agricultural products, including Zhao Linger and Qu Bu. They sometimes invite villagers to shoot with them and give them something or money.
"When they came, they looked for old houses everywhere in the mountains to shoot. After these houses were relocated to new houses, they were abandoned and uninhabited. Villager Hailai Haqu recalls that the people who shot the video rarely communicated with the villagers, "One day the lights suddenly turned on in the old house where no one lived, and I realized that they were filming live video there." ”
Progress:
The account of "fake agricultural assistance" was permanently banned
First-instance verdict: The company's legal representative and a number of anchors were sentenced
The Red Star News reporter learned from an interview that almost all of the more than 20,000 catties of honey and more than 94,000 catties of walnuts involved in the case of Zhao Linger and Qu Bu were purchased from other places at low prices, shoddy and sold at high prices, and only a very small number of original ecological high-quality products really came from Liangshan. According to the team's supply producer, Guo, "A small amount of honey was purchased from Gumo Village, Zhaojue County, just to obtain a local certificate of origin, proving that the origin comes from Daliang Mountain. ”
The story is false, the help to farmers is false, and it is true to deceive consumers to make illegal profits. According to the police handling the case, the foreign honey sold by the team, a bottle of 500 grams, was purchased at a low-cost price, and each bottle was sold for 98 yuan after being labeled with the original ecological label of Daliangshan, which can be said to be a huge profit. In just a few months, the company operated by Zhang has achieved illegal profits of more than 3 million yuan, and the illegal income of Internet celebrity anchors Zhao Linger and Qu Bu has exceeded 700,000 yuan.
The Red Star News reporter learned that in July 2023, the People's Procuratorate of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture, approved the arrest of Zhang, the legal representative of Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd., the operator Shuai and Xu, the Internet celebrity anchors Zhao, A Ri, Shi Yi, Zhong, and Guo, the manufacturer of counterfeit goods, who were suspected of counterfeiting registered trademarks and false advertising.
At present, the relevant accounts involved in the case have been banned.
It is reported that since the beginning of this year, Liangshan has dealt with 346 illegal accounts, permanently closed 82 accounts such as "Yunnan Bobo" and "Mountain Village Old Man" who "put up a miserable auction", and permanently closed 15 accounts such as "Zhao Linger", "Qubu" and "Liangshan Mengyang" who "falsely helped farmers", including 5 accounts with more than 2 million fans.
On December 29, the Red Star News reporter interviewed and learned about the latest progress of the case, on December 28, the People's Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan announced the first-instance verdict of the case in accordance with the law, Zhang, the legal representative of Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd., was sentenced to 3 years and 2 months in prison and fined 250,000 yuan, and Guo was sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined 200,000 yuan for counterfeiting registered trademarks; Shuai, Xu and others committed the crime of false advertising, and were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 8 months to 10 months and fines ranging from 20,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan.
According to Red Star News