Cheaters are the worst. Ever since video games first went online, multiplayer gaming has had a cheating problem, and though it doesn't look like the problem may ever go away entirely, a huge provider of cheats in China has been busted wide open after making about $760 million.
The 'Anti-Cheat Police Department', a video game cheat reporting Twitter account, brought attention to the developments in China after Kunshan police made arrests and seized huge amounts of property including luxury cars. The "Peace Elite" project team worked with security from gaming giant Tencent to finally end the cheat seller's group activity in March this year, 12 months after large scale investigation efforts started in 2020.
According to Dexerto, the main focus of the cheats that these particular resellers were involved in were mobile games, but cheats for other titles like Overwatch and Valorant were also available. The way access to the cheats worked was through a subscription service where buyers would purchase increasing days, weeks, months of access to cheats for increasing sums - not unlike having a subscription to something like Xbox Game Pass, but for game cheat plug-ins specifically.
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In the end, that's how the cheat sellers made over 5 Billion RMB ($760 million USD) before getting shut down. This money went to leaders like Wang Moumou in Hunan, who spent it on buying luxury items and property like Lamborghinis and Ferraris which are now in the hands of Chinese police. The amount of money this particular individual had in his name added up to tens of millions. The cheating scheme was making the company about $10k a day before it was shut down.
Kunshan police are calling it "the world's biggest bust". They say it's because of three factors, the first being the huge amount of money involved, the second because of the number of games involved and thirdly because the cheats weren't just affecting China, but also many other countries. The team will continue to work to bust open other cheat providers like this one.
