Website staff in extortion claims
Print Edition
STAFF from a business news website, including its editor-in-chief and its deputy, have been detained by police in Shanghai over allegations they blackmailed dozens of companies by threatening to publish bad news stories.
Also detained were the heads of two public relations firms.
A total of eight people, including www.21cbh.com reporters and employees in its marketing department, are alleged to have extorted money from the companies since November 2013, police said.
They were seized after police, acting on information from individuals and companies, raided three offices in the city on Wednesday.
Police said yesterday that the editor-in-chief at the website, surnamed Liu, and the deputy, surnamed Zhou, had been targeting firms which regarded media coverage as of particular importance. They offered to carry good news stories about the firms with the help of PR firms Roya Investment Services Ltd in Shanghai and Shenzhen-based investment consulting company Nukirin, police said.
After accepting high fees from the businesses who were willing to engage in “positive propaganda,” the suspects are alleged to have exaggerated positive facts or concealed negative issues.
Companies who rejected the offer soon found they were the subject of “malicious attacks” on the website, police said, or faced demands for money to ensure negative stories never saw the light of day.
The victims included many listed companies or well-known enterprises in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong Province, police said, but didn’t name any of the companies involved.
Neither did they specify the amounts of money that were paid in the name of website advertisements or collaboration contracts. But police said the accused had made “huge personal profits.”
Staff at the website’s offices on Zhongshan Road near Shanghai Stadium appeared to be working as normal yesterday.
An employee there declined to comment but the website later posted a statement online saying it would be cooperating with the police investigation. Meanwhile, it would be operating as normal.
Several employees were at work at the offices of the Roya company in the Pudong New Area yesterday and a female employee said it was business as usual. But she said the managers were not there and she could not comment further.
Calls to Nukirin went unanswered.
21cbh.com is run by Guangdong-based 21st Century Media Co Ltd, which says on its website that it is “the largest professional media operator in the Chinese financial and business media industry.”
The group’s flagship product is the widely influential 21st Century Business Herald daily newspaper.
Last year, the 21st Century Business Herald published a series of stories alleging bribery among foreign and local pharmaceutical companies, citing unidentified whistleblowers.
Roya says on its website that it has handled dozens of successful events for a number of listed companies.
The company’s clients include Shanghai-based department store chain Bailian Group, Huayi Brothers and Shanghai Electric Group.
It is also the long-term investment relationship management firm for Industrial Bank, Air China and China Railway Group Ltd.
It has also served companies such as Baoshan Iron & Steel Co, Offshore Oil Engineering Co Ltd and Cosco Shipping Co on bond issuance and initial public offerings.
The company has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
A reporter for the Guangzhou-based New Express newspaper was arrested last October after confessing on state television to accepting bribes for fabricating more than a dozen stories about Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co Ltd in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province in central China.
The reporter wrote that Zoomlion had engaged in sales fraud and exaggerated its profits, accusations strongly denied by the state-owned construction equipment maker.
More recently, anti-corruption authorities have detained several senior staff members from China Central Television, including a top news anchor.
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