Internet Tech Giants' Anti-Corruption Crackdown: "Small Officials, Massive Corruption," One Employee Received Bribes Totaling 2.08 Million

March 13, 2026

Word count: 1,225, estimated reading time: about 2 minutes

Author | First Financial Chen Yangyuan

Cover image | AI-generated

Anti-corruption is becoming an important challenge for major internet companies.

A former employee of Ele.me, serving as the head of the platform’s comprehensive service management team, accepted bribes of 250,000 yuan. A criminal judgment recently disclosed by the People’s Court of Putuo District, Shanghai, shows that this employee used his position to assist a Shanghai-based company in continuing to handle business in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and Jinhua, Zhejiang. He illegally received cash bribes totaling 250,000 yuan in three installments and was sentenced for accepting bribes as a non-state employee, with an eight-month prison sentence, a one-year probation, and a fine of 30,000 yuan.

A procurement operations manager at Pinduoduo received an even higher bribe amounting to 2.08 million yuan. On February 27, the People’s Court of Changning District, Shanghai, disclosed a document showing that Zhang, responsible for merchant recruitment and operations in the medical devices category at Pinduoduo, used his position to manage merchants in medical devices, adult family planning, and pharmaceuticals from 2020 to 2024. He accepted bribes from merchants worth over 2.08 million yuan, with the smallest bribe being 40,000 yuan and the largest reaching 600,000 yuan plus a Rolex watch.

The phenomenon of “small officials, big corruption” within internet companies is becoming increasingly prominent. According to the “White Paper on Internal Corruption Cases in Internet Companies” jointly released by the Haidian District People’s Court of Beijing and the China Internet Association in 2025, from 2020 to 2024, the Haidian Court handled 350 cases of corruption involving non-state employees, of which 127 involved internal personnel of internet companies, accounting for about 36%. The charges included accepting bribes as a non-state employee, embezzlement, and misappropriation of funds, with case amounts exceeding 300 million yuan. The number of cases has been rising over the past three years.

Internal corruption cases in internet companies are characterized by high concealment, “small officials, big corruption,” and collusion between internal and external parties. Additionally, the 203 defendants involved tend to be younger and middle management. Most are mid-career professionals, with many holding positions such as department managers, directors, supervisors, or responsible persons with managerial authority. Among the cases, 79 involved middle or higher-level positions, accounting for 62.20%.

Leading internet giants have entered a phase of normalized anti-corruption efforts. In January this year, Tencent reported that in 2025, its anti-fraud investigation department uncovered and dealt with over 70 cases violating Tencent’s “high-pressure line,” with more than 20 suspects transferred to public security authorities for criminal handling. Within a year, nearly 100 employees had been dismissed for violating Tencent’s internal rules.

“Early-stage growth of China’s internet giants was often reckless, with many regulations and systems incomplete. As these companies mature, modern corporate systems are gradually established, and cases of corruption will be exposed and prosecuted as regulations improve,” said internet industry analyst Zhang Shule in an interview.

He explained that, for example, in the e-commerce sector, a regular employee might control critical channels or stores’ lifelines—such as review processes, traffic allocation, dispute resolution, and promotional entry—which can breed corruption. Although many of these gray-area issues have been addressed in recent years, some still persist in hidden corners or lower-level positions. Zhang believes that corruption is almost a “common disease” among internet giants, especially more so in emerging industries like gaming. Under the new attributes of the internet industry, establishing and improving a modern corporate system that can quickly adapt to enterprise development remains a major challenge for internet companies.

Massive information, precise analysis, all on Sina Finance APP