Chinese police crack down on mobile game cheat creators making millions

A group of PUBG Mobile cheatmakers were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

What you need to know

• A VICE report details the background of the creators of a popular PUBG Mobile cheat, whose business recently came to an end.
• The creators were making hundreds of thousands a month, and millions a year, from the sale of these cheats.
• The Chinese police cracked down on this in an operation known as "Chicken Drumstick."

Chinese police have cracked down on one of the largest mobile gaming cheat developers in the world, known to them as "Chicken Drumstick," and to its users as Cheat Ninja. In a new report, VICE documents the cheat-maker's story and reveals just how many millions they were making from the illicit software.

The cheats in question include things like wallhacks and were developed for the mobile versions of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Naturally, given cheating has a negative effect on a game and the bottom line of the game's creators, Chinese company Tencent had an interest in cracking down on the creators of these cheats. Earlier this year, a police raid in Kunshan resulted in the arrests of up to 10 people and the seizure of multiple assets, including several expensive cars, that were apparently the fruits of these labors.

The details on the arrests were revealed in the VICE report, which cites info from the creator of one of the cheats, given the pseudonym "Catfish". When several of his Chinese colleagues went missing, only to turn up after days urging him to visit Shanghai, Catfish knew the Chinese police were onto him. Working with Tencent, Chinese police cracked down on several of the cheat-makers.

Catfish, who's laying low according to VICE, has made enough money from his cheat endeavors to comfortably retire from the business. He told VICE that, at the height of his cheats' popularity, he and his compatriots were making $350,000-400,000 a month. The assets seized in the aforementioned raids were worth $46 million.

The cheaters were primarily working within PUBG Mobile, but had been branching out to other mobile games. For its part, PUBG Mobile retains a decently-sized playerbase, having recently launched a Godzilla vs Kong tie-in event. If you want to play the game (we cannot condone the cheats), we have a list of the best phones for PUBG Mobile.

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PUBG Mobile

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The battle royale classic on mobile

PUBG Mobile is a mobile port of one of the original battle royale games, free to play. With multiple modes, you can go up against 99 other players in the classic battle mode, or team up against other players in death matches.

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