The first case in China: 8 people sentenced for “cleaning up followers” ​​on WeChat

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I believe that many people have more or less "zombie fans" among their WeChat friends. Some of them have promoted advertisements, and some have deleted you or blocked you. How to deal with it? Some people choose "fan cleaning" services for convenience, but they don't know that this is very dangerous.

After “cleaning fans”, some users found that strangers joined the group by scanning the QR code they shared, or they were pulled into some advertising groups.

In September 2020, the Tongzhou Public Security Bureau of Nantong City, Jiangsu Province cracked the first case in the country of illegally obtaining WeChat user information using WeChat's "cleaning fans" software, and 8 suspects were arrested.

On March 3, 2021, the case was sentenced collectively. Zhang and eight other defendants made illegal profits of more than 2 million yuan by inflating the number of readings and selling WeChat group chat QR codes. They were convicted of illegally obtaining computer information system data and illegally controlling computer information systems and were sentenced.

According to reports, the principle of WeChat's "fan cleaning" software is to control the WeChat account through the application cluster control software, automatically send group messages to all friends, and then the software automatically identifies which are "zombie fans" and deletes them.

However, after gaining control of the WeChat account, the criminals took the opportunity to illegally obtain the user's WeChat group chat QR code information, and saved these group chat QR codes in the form of pictures on the server, and then resold them to downstream fraud, gambling and other criminal gangs to profit from them.

Since February 2020, strangers have frequently scanned codes to join groups in many regions to spread illegal advertisements such as gambling and marketing, and even commit fraud. There have been more than 1,500 related cases involving more than 20 provinces and cities.

According to Tencent's feedback, after the WeChat group chat QR code leak occurred, they cooperated with public security organs in many places in accordance with the law and arrested several criminal gangs that sold and used WeChat group chat QR codes to commit crimes.

After conducting investigative experiments on a large number of "cleaning fans" software, the task force finally identified a software called "Weiqing" as a major suspect. The gang carefully produced an advertisement for "Extremely Quick Cleaning Fans", claiming that it was officially certified and that it only took 1 minute to complete the test.

In just three months, the criminal gang illegally obtained more than 20 million WeChat group chat QR codes of users, which were sold to fraud and gambling criminal gangs in Longyan, Fujian and other places. They also helped others follow WeChat public accounts in batches and increase the number of readings and likes, making a profit of more than 2 million yuan.