When shopping online, store sales and product reviews are key factors that affect whether many consumers place orders or not. But you may not expect that the top selling products on shopping websites, with all five-star reviews in the review section, may not be "bought" by consumers one by one, but rather "brushed" out. Some businesses, in order to expand sales, resort to shortcuts and spend money on fake reviews posted by order brushing groups to lure consumers into placing orders. Not long ago, the Shandong police dismantled a criminal gang specializing in online order brushing, involving over 30000 online stores and a total of 1 billion yuan in involved funds. In April of this year, the Cybersecurity Brigade of Sishui County Public Security Bureau in Jining City received a clue that a resident named Wang was suspected of participating in criminal activities such as brushing orders online. Zhuang Xinlei, the head of the Cybersecurity Brigade of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: We have selected elite personnel for analysis and judgment, and found that Wang has been involved in brushing orders, accepting orders, and returning commissions to customers on the Huahua e-commerce platform for a long time, engaging in illegal business activities. We have decided to file a case for investigation. The police found through the retrieval of Wang's relevant information that she frequently contacted Ma Moupeng from Linyi, Shandong, and under Ma Moupeng's instructions, had exchanges and financial transactions with many people known as brushing hands in WeChat groups. Cong Hongdi, Deputy Captain of the Cybersecurity Brigade of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: We quickly arrested the person involved in the case, Wang, at home. Through an investigation of the confiscated computers and laptops at the scene, we discovered a fake order platform and a large number of WeChat groups engaged in fake orders. After questioning Wang, he applied to work for a network company in Linyi in January 2024 as a customer service representative for the Huahua e-commerce platform. Wang confessed that her main job on the platform was to contact online merchants, publish links to products that needed to be flashed on the Huahua e-commerce platform, and then count the workload of the flashing users through WeChat groups, as well as settle commissions. Ma Moupeng, who often contacts her, is the owner of Huahua E-commerce Platform! According to Wang's confession, in order to avoid police crackdown on fake order platforms, the police found that Ma Moupeng, the owner of Huahua e-commerce platform, has two companies in Linyi and Zhengzhou. The police soldiers split into two routes and rushed to Linyi and Zhengzhou, where they captured Ma Moupeng in Jinshui District of Zhengzhou City. After interrogation, Ma Moupeng established a studio in Zhengzhou to expand his business and avoid being attacked by the public security organs. He is currently in the stage of recruiting merchants. At Ma Moupeng's studio in Linyi, Shandong, the police arrested three suspects including Zhang Mouxiang. After investigation, it was found that Zhang Mouxiang and the other three were all customer service members in the order brushing gang. The division of labor clearly defined that the maximum number of "hand brushing" was 2700 per day. After killing the two studios under Huahua Network Platform, Surabaya police seized the victory and organized police forces to go to Jiangsu, Anhui and other places successively, and captured more than 10 suspect, such as gang members Li Moujian and Chen Moulin. Some of these suspect were platform agents of Ma Moupeng's hand brushing gang, and some served as team leaders of the hand brushing team. Ma Moupeng is from Linyi City. In 2022, he engaged in illegal brushing activities with his girlfriend Liu and was later investigated by the police. Cong Hongdi, Deputy Captain of the Cybersecurity Brigade of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: Ma Moupeng used to be a brushing salesperson. By getting to know Liu, he obtained resources from e-commerce platforms and recruited personnel to engage in illegal and criminal activities of false brushing. Ma Moupeng started building and operating the Huahua e-commerce platform in August 2023. There are multiple levels of brushing groups on the platform, with clear division of labor among members. In addition to the owner Ma Moupeng, the Huahua e-commerce platform also has multiple personnel in finance and customer service. Ma Biao, a police officer from the New Crime Research and Operations Center of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: There are more than ten agents equivalent to partners at the same time, and then the next level is the brushing platform. The brushing platform plays a bridge of communication between merchants and brushing platforms. According to the investigation by the police handling the case, Ma Moupeng's gang has a total of 12 agents, 15 team leaders for brushing orders, and 101 brushing hands, distributed in 8 provinces including Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangxi. The agent is responsible for negotiating the fee for brushing orders with the merchant's store. Depending on the price of the product and the difficulty of completing the task, the fee per order ranges from a few yuan to 30 yuan. After the transaction, the agent will receive a proportional commission, and the balance will be controlled by Ma Moupeng. Ma Biao, a police officer from the New Crime Research and Operations Center of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: Then Ma Moupeng uploads the merchant's task to the brushing platform, and these brushing hands can see the task on their mobile phones. He can then follow the task requirements on the website step by step. The commission earned from brushing hands is generally between 3 and 5 yuan per order. According to the statistics of the investigating police, at the time of the crime, the gang averaged over 2000 orders per day, with some scammers brushing up to 2733 orders per day, making a considerable profit. Ma Biao, a police officer from the New Crime Research and Operations Center of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: After receiving clues from the Municipal Bureau's Network Security Detachment, he immediately conducted an investigation on the backend of Huahua E-commerce. Through the investigation, it was found that from 0:00 on April 3 to 11:00, there were a total of 7326 orders, of which 2372 had been completed and the total amount of brushing orders reached 1.35 million yuan. False evaluations deceive consumers into operating empty packages to evade supervision. During the investigation of the case, the police also discovered that criminal gangs, in order to evade supervision, used empty packages to manipulate logistics data without actual commodity transactions. Every time a consumer purchases a product on an e-commerce platform, there will be corresponding transaction records and logistics information in the system. However, when "brush hands" give false evaluations to merchants, because there is no real transaction, the system naturally does not have the logistics information of the product. In order to evade platform supervision, criminal gangs have ulterior motives. Ma Biao, a police officer from the New Crime Research and Operations Center of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: He needs to buy an empty package and then proceed with shipping. This empty package either doesn't contain anything and only has one courier skin, or it contains a brick or garbage inside. Some also use other people's order numbers to provide logistics with information, making it feel like normal shopping, in order to evade some platform supervision. Liu Baoen, Director of Sishui County Public Security Bureau: Brushing orders is the process of generating transaction orders and receiving positive reviews without real transactions, creating false impressions for real consumers, inducing and attracting customer traffic, and also dealing a blow to the normal operation of honest businesses. Its behavior seriously disrupts market competition order and has serious social harm. At present, 15 suspect including Ma Moupeng have been taken criminal coercive measures by the police according to law, and the case is still under further investigation. (New Society)