Working in Tandem, both Tencent and the Chinese police have shutdown the “worlds biggest cheat provider”.
Before the services were discontinued, the cheating ring had already made over $750 million.
The Arrests
The arrests made by the Chinese government started in earnest in March of 2020. They first began to investigate the offenders after the cheating ring was reported to the police.
A full year has gone by since the first report and the entire ring has now been busted.
In some shocking news, according to the announcement from the Chinese police, this has the potential to be one of the biggest takedowns of international cheat providers in history.
The subscriber base of the cheat ring was substantial if a little mysterious.
Despite the mystery surrounding the user base, we do know that they were happy to pay.
In fact, the cheating ring was raking in around $10,000 per day.
The police even seized multi-million-dollar sports cars and assets that totaled over $46 million.
As a result of the raids carried out by the police, they arrested 10 resellers and shut down 17 sites they were operating.
The hacks
The options offered by the cheating ring was pretty standard fair.
It was a subscription to the cheating software.
Cheaters could pay for limited access to the hacks.
In the announcement from the police, they said that the rates equated to $10 for a single day of cheat use, $50 for a week, or $200 for a month.
While the raid was undertaken in China and the service itself was mostly Asia facing, there are claims that the hacks were sold internationally.
Interestingly, these cheats were centered around mobile gaming.
It is a large sector of the market but not one that you usually equate with cheating.
They did also offer hacks for PC and console titles like Overwatch and Valorant.
The Anti-Cheat Police Department, an unofficial organization that investigates cheating in online games, posted an online video that shows a member of the cheating ring outlining their operations:
The main objective is to get the keys from the distributors and sell it at the prize that the admins want you to sell it at ($38 USD per month) and give it to the customers.
We use bitcoin as a form of transaction between sellers and developers/distributors to prevent them getting realized or caught.
I talked to the development team about the opinions and suggestions and issues from the customers on what they want and how the cheat could be improved.
We also collect money from the customer key purchases after purchasing from the panel.
How could this effect the Esports & Esports Betting Market
Sometimes it is hard to understand how important cheating in competitive games is.
While cheating itself is not illegal, it undermines the integrity of the game and any potential it has to become a sport.
There are plenty of examples of hacks and cheats giving players an edge in competitive esports.
The Esports Integrity Commission exists to combat this exact issue.
Some players could use exploits or hacks to improve their rankings while others may do something even worse and deliberately change the outcome of a game and participate in match fixing.
If you are getting worried about the issues, don't.
Most major esports tournaments offer protections against cheaters.
If you are an esports bettor or tempted by the thought of betting at an esports event, make sure that you bet with one of the recommended esports bookmakers here at Strafe.com
If you want to bet on sports 100% safely and securely, Unikrn is the best place to start - find out more below:
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