The former head of NetEase's esports division and the former CEO of NetEase Games were reportedly arrested on charges of money laundering and bribery. In addition to former executives Xiang Liang and Jin Yuchen, several other people who worked at the company were arrested for alleged corruption.
As pointed out chinese exit reported that the former employees in question allegedly laundered between 800 million and 1 billion yuan ($111 million and $139 million). NetEase confirmed that tech-and-telecom-law/netease-says-police-detained-executives-for-alleged-bribery” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Bloomberg Law;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:3;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”> only that the police were investigating possible corruption. The company is said to have laid off nine staff members for alleged bribery.
Several outsiders were also involved, according to . The outlet noted that, according to an internal memo, NetEase will refuse to do business with 27 companies that have been linked to the alleged fraud and corruption.
NetEase is behind companies like and Naraka: sword tip (the latter of which averages over 109,000 players on Steam at any given time). It has two free-to-play shooters on the way based on major franchises, namely and .
White collar crime is not a rarity in the gaming industry. Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka was sentenced last year to pay just over $1.1 million after admitting to using inside information.
