HELSINKI — Cash-strapped local police departments in China have been targeting suppliers of banned virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the internet beyond the Great Firewall, threatening them with prosecution in return for huge fines. A victim of such extortion who recently fled to the Netherlands shared his story with Voice of America (VOA).
Gan Wenwei, 31, who once made a living selling VPN access and online game accelerators to users in China, fled the country after he got a visit from seven or eight plainclothes police officers on the evening of Aug. 15, 2024, who searched his home and arrested him, he told VOA in a recent Zoom interview from Tilburg, a Netherlands town around 100 kilometers south of Amsterdam.
在国内从事网游加速器和虚拟专用网络(VPN)翻墙软件供应的甘文威，因为成为山东夏津公安“远洋捕捞”的对象而逃亡到了荷兰寻求庇护。他向美国之音讲述了他们团队在网上经营这个被视为灰色生意，被夏津公安抓捕和敲诈巨额罚款以及他和家人如何逃离中国的经历。详细报道：https://t.co/JZezydlx48 pic.twitter.com/o46Osbhl8s
— 美国之音中文网 (@VOAChinese) March 4, 2025
While technically not illegal in China, using a VPN for personal use is largely prohibited, as only government-approved VPNs for businesses are allowed, meaning most individuals cannot use a VPN without risking legal repercussions. The Chinese government actively blocks access to non-approved VPN services.
A self-starting tech prodigy
Born in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Gan dropped out of elementary school when he was in the fourth grade, and learned everything about the internet on his own.
“Knowledge about bypassing internet restrictions and network transmission is not available online — you can’t learn this kind of thing in China,” Gan said from a refugee camp in the Netherlands, where he is applying for political asylum.
He landed his first job as a network administrator at the age of just 14, and was writing programming scripts to help players cheat in games by the age of 17 or 18. He later came to specialize in network transmission.
“My main work was online game accelerators, and I created several accelerators, including the Xiaoming and Tiantian Accelerators,” Gan said.
While his accelerator business has since been deregistered, Gan has been offering VPN service via Telegram, where he works with around 30 partners. He would also buy cheap servers in bulk from China Mobile and resell them to friends in the group.
The exact number of Chinese internet users relying on VPNs to bypass restrictions remains unknown, but estimates range from 5.5 million to as high as 30 million.
But his lucrative and collaborative dream was about to turn into a nightmare.
At around 5 p.m. on Aug. 15, 2024, Gan got a visit from seven or eight plainclothes police officers, who raided his home in Wuhan and took him in for questioning.
“They turned my house upside down, searching for documents and computers,” Gan said.
“I resisted for four or five hours, refusing to give them the passwords to my computer and phone, but later they opened my Macbook themselves and saw that my Telegram handle was “Xitele,” which is a play on Xi Jinping’s name,” said Gan.
“They said, ‘So it is you. We’ve found the right person’,” he said. “Then they took me to the Gangdu police station in the Qingshan district of Wuhan to interrogate me, asking about my relationship with Zhang Xun, what help I provided him, and whether I had met with others in our group.”
Zhang Xun was a member of Gan’s Telegram technology group.
Using Sentry Mode on his Tesla car, which automatically activates the vehicle’s cameras and sensors, Gan was able to record footage of the police taking him away from his home.
The 23-second clip shows at least six plainclothes officers, with two escorting Gan away, the handcuffs he wore covered by his clothes.
“I was then taken to the Nanshan Case Center in Shenzhen, where I stayed for a day before being sent to the Nanshan Detention Center,” he said.
Shenzhen is a city in Guangdong province, located on the coast of the South China Sea, about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from Wuhan.
Gan was held there for 28 days, before being released on bail by the Shenzhen police on Sept. 14.
Police extort millions in fines
Gan thought his ordeal was over, but the nightmare was only just getting started.
A month later, he received a notification from police in Shenzhen, asking him to visit the Nanshan Case Center, where he was interrogated by police from Xiajin county in Shandong, a coastal province in East China.
They kept asking him how much money he made, where the money was, and about the people he worked with.
They hinted multiple times that if he paid a fine of around 1 million yuan (US$137,300) he wouldn’t be prosecuted.
So Gan agreed, thinking he might even need to sell his home to pay the fine.
He was held for two days then released on bail by Xiajin police after paying a security deposit of 20,000 yuan (US$2,745).
As well as Gan, police had also arrested Zhang Xun, Zhou Yupeng and Shu Hua, in a case they described as “providing tools for the intrusion into and illegal control over computer systems.” Zhou and Shu got bail, but Zhang Xun remained in detention, possibly because he refused to pay for the fine.
“Generally speaking, VPN cases don’t go to trial, and very few result in prison sentences; they are usually resolved by police,” Gan said. “The Xiajin police have been after so many VPN cases across the country in recent years, with the aim of making money; once they get the money, they release people.”
Xiajin police on expeditions
For the past five or six years, Xiajin police have been arresting circumvention software developers or providers across the country by finding some locals to pose as buyers, Gan said.
“After I was released on bail, I found out through lawyers and friends that it was the Xiajin police behind the case,” Gan said. “As long as someone from Xiajin county uses your VPN, they can arrest you anywhere in the country.”
Voice of America was able to reach Zhang Xun’s girlfriend, who said she was unclear about his whereabouts and was unable to contact him.
She was unsure how much the Xiajin police demanded from Zhang in fines, but estimated it to be “several million yuan.”
After he was released on bail, Gan Wenwei delayed paying the huge fine.
But on Dec. 13, 2024, he received a summons to report to the Xiajin Public Security Bureau for questioning by Dec. 16.
Fleeing journey begins
Realizing that the Xiajin police were about to close in, and fearing a long spell in detention, torture and imprisonment if he couldn’t pay up, Gan decided to flee instead.
While his bail conditions meant he wasn’t allowed to leave China, his passport hadn’t been confiscated.
He hired a car and drove from Wuhan to Guangxi, avoiding detection by China’s SkyNet surveillance network by never getting out of the car the entire way.
He crossed the border in Vietnam, and forged his own entry and exit records with the help of a staff member in the border and customs agency.
At the same time, he arranged for his wife and daughter to fly to Singapore, where the family met up, traveling on to North Africa, Serbia and Italy, arriving in Amsterdam after several days of exhausting travel on Jan. 26, 2025.
They are currently living in a refugee camp in Tilburg while their asylum application is processed.
Gan has documented his journey on his personal website.
Xiajin police’s feats
Netherlands-based rights activist Lin Shengliang has collected personal information on several of the Xiajin County Public Security Bureau’s Cybersecurity Division officers involved in Gan’s case and recorded it in the Chinese Human Rights Accountability Database.
Ju Kaifei, deputy captain of the Cybersecurity Division, declined to comment when contacted by Voice of America.
Meng Fanyu, another police officer in the same division acknowledged they were handling the “Zhang Xun case” but hung up when he heard he’d been called by a VOA journalist.
The official WeChat account for the Xiajin county police department lists Ju’s busts.
Since the Ministry of Public Security launched its operation targeting those who bypass the Great Firewall, Ju has led the analysis and handling of cases like one involving “providing tools for the intrusion into and illegal control over computer systems,” a case involving “providing tools for the intrusion into and illegal control over computer systems” and another involving “providing tools for the intrusion into and illegal control over computer systems, a WeChat post said.
These operations “successfully dismantled multiple illegal sites that had been operating for more than three years with more than 500,000 users nationwide, and seized more than 40 million yuan (US$5.5 million), winning recognition from provincial and municipal leaders,” it said.
Poor finance fuels crackdown
Xiajin’s aggressive crackdown on the VPN industry nationwide is driven by its financial struggles, as the county seeks to generate revenue through fines, Gan suggested.
Xiajin, a county in the northwest of Shandong Province, was among the 10 poorest counties in Shandong in 2023.
A Chinese person who claimed to be the first VPN provider to be targeted by the Xiajin police five years ago and has since hidden in Southeast Asia, contacted Gan after the latter spoke out publicly from overseas.
This person told Gan that Xiajin police pressured him into paying 12 million yuan (US$1.6 million) to avoid prosecution. Encouraged by the success of this tactic, they began casting their nets around the country in search of VPN service providers for extortion.
VOA contacted the person, but he declined to be interviewed out of concern for his safety.
Gan believes there are many more victims of similar cases that haven’t yet come to light, and called on victims to contact him via his X account (@ganwen_nl), to share their stories, provide evidence, and expose the Xiajin police.
Lin Shengliang, who heads the Chinese Human Rights Database, says such crackdown across the nation has become more prevalent in recent years as local governments run into financial difficulties.
But while such operations typically targeted private business owners, the case Gan was caught up in was the first to target individuals, he said.
“These types of cases have a significant impact on the VPN industry,” Lin told VOA. “Large-scale arrests of VPN service providers will make it even more difficult for the Chinese public to bypass internet restrictions.”
“We have uncovered nearly all the personal information of the police involved and hope that other victims in this industry who have not yet been exposed will publicly share their stories to expose these abuses,” Lin said.
A dangerous profession
While VPNs are legal in most countries, the laws around VPNs in China would be considered draconian in the West, as illustrated by what happened to Gan and Zhang, James Milin-Ashmore, a British sports journalist and VPN content writer who has provided content for several VPN providers over eight years, told VOA.
“This story highlights the numerous risks involved in setting up VPN services for Chinese citizens inside China, and should be viewed as a warning to others,” he said. “Yes, there is a huge potential VPN user market in China, but if you get caught, the consequences can be severe.”
Liu Dongling, who heads the BanGFW Movement that advocates for ending internet censorship in China, said many people in China sell VPNs on a small scale without attracting the attention of authorities, but Gan and Zhang likely got caught due to the large scale of their business.
“Selling VPNs in China and doing this kind of business is a dangerous job because there is a firewall in China, and of course, they don’t want people selling VPNs,” she told VOA.
Shandong and Guangzhou are known for having stricter crackdowns on the sale of VPNs, she said.
Zhang Lei, a former senior internet professional in China and head of 360 Desktop, said local police crackdowns on such activities are primarily motivated by financial gain.
“I don’t think the Chinese Communist Party has much enthusiasm for cracking down on it; rather, I believe local police and national security police have a high level of enthusiasm for targeting this market,” Zhang said. “After all, even arresting one person can lead to substantial financial gain.”
He said anyone trying to run such a business would be better off staying outside of China.
To read the original story in Chinese, click here.
