Man jailed for placing fake Taobao orders online

A man's been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for placing fake orders online to improve retailers' rankings.

Photo shows the defendant at the Yuhang District People's Court. [Photo: cztv.com]

The court in Yuhang, Zhejiang province, was told that between February 2013 to June 2014, the man surnamed Li, received a total of 800,000 yuan, almost USD 120,000, from online sellers.

In return, he placed fake orders for products being sold via online retail platforms such as Taobao.com.

At the beginning of 2014, Taobao's owners, Alibaba Group became suspicious of an online retailer, after analyzing big data. In May of that year, the case was reported to the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau. After an initial investigation, Li emerged as a key suspect in the case.

A further probe revealed that Li used social media to contact online sellers, offering to raise their online profiles if they signed up to his scheme.

Li was detained and arrested by the police in September 2016, for placing fake orders and violating personal information laws.

According to the Yuhang District People's Court, this was the first case they'd dealt with involving fake orders being placed online.