Livestream AI Digital Human Fake Stock God Virtual Market: Backend Market Manipulation to Induce Liquidation

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are primarily elderly retail investors aged 50 to 70, as well as middle-aged retail investors with stock and futures trading experience but no understanding of AI technology. They generally believe in the existence of "inside information" while having an extreme desire for high returns, making them vulnerable to pitches like "upper-limit price predictions" and "institutional seat copy trading" in the livestreaming room. Due to a lack of awareness regarding digital human realism and AI face-swapping technology, they mistakenly take virtual avatars for real experts. Coupled with free stock recommendations offering small initial gains to lower their guard, they ultimately invest their life savings into fraudulent trading platforms.

骗局怎么运作

• Building a virtual persona: Fraud rings set up financial livestreaming rooms on short-video platforms, using AI digital humans or face-swapping technology to impersonate well-known investors, or fabricating the profile picture and resume of a "gold medal analyst," accompanied by scrolling subtitles displaying upper-limit trading records. Their scripts repeatedly emphasize "trading only leading stocks, avoiding miscellaneous ones" to build a sense of professional authority and create initial trust among viewers that "following big players leads to profits."
• Screening targets through free stock recommendations: Livestreaming rooms do not charge fees directly; instead, they guide viewers to click links and redirect them to private domains such as Enterprise WeChat or QQ groups. The groups push stocks guaranteed to "hit the upper limit the next day" every day and arrange multiple accounts to post screenshots of copy-trading profits. Most of these screenshots are forged in the backend, aiming to let potential victims see consecutive hits and believe the group owner truly has an "inside channel," thereby paving the way for downloading the virtual trading app later.
• Inducing the download of a virtual trading app: Group "assistants" use excuses like "institutional seats require designated channels" or "ordinary brokerage accounts cannot buy upper-limit stocks" to send download links or installation packages outside official app stores, guiding users to top up and deposit funds. The real-time market data, position gains and losses, and liquidation lines displayed in the so-called app are fake data that can be edited in the backend. Funds are actually transferred to private accounts or shell company accounts controlled by the platform, and never enter any real securities market.
• Modifying market data in the backend to create an illusion of windfall profits: After victims deposit funds, the backend initially grants slight floating profits based on normal market data, or directly displays high returns for several consecutive orders, or even modifies the time-sharing chart of a specific stock to create a "divine prediction" effect. At this point, the "teacher" urges them to increase their principal and seize "doubling seats" with pitches such as "this market trend will at least triple, investing 50,000 to earn only a few thousand is a waste of your quota." Seeing the numbers in their accounts soar, victims often make additional investments.
• Reverse order-guiding to induce liquidation: Once victims invest large sums of funds, the fraud ring switches to a "guided trading" mode, intentionally driving them to take heavy positions with high leverage on a niche stock or foreign exchange/precious metals product in the virtual market. Simultaneously, the backend manipulates the market trend, causing candlestick charts to plummet in reverse and trigger forced liquidation. Victims believe it was their own operational error, and all losses go straight into the ring's pockets; some platforms also prohibit withdrawals under the pretext of "insufficient margin" or "system upgrades," forcing victims to add more funds.
• Closing the website and fleeing after harvesting: When victims attempt to withdraw cash, customer service delays the process under excuses like "abnormal account," "need to pay personal income tax," or "need to pay authentication deposits." Afterwards, the livestreaming room stops broadcasting, groups are disbanded, and the app becomes inaccessible. Ringleaders usually direct operations from overseas, and the illicit funds are rapidly transferred through multi-layered personal accounts and cryptocurrencies. The entire cycle from inducing deposits to shutting down the website and fleeing typically does not exceed three months.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Mechanical digital human appearance in livestreams: Lip movements do not match audio, blinking frequency is abnormal, real-time responses to bullet comments are impossible, or phrases like "system busy" are repeatedly emphasized to avoid live interactive connections.
• 🚩 Guaranteed high-return pitches: Absolute promises such as "100% monthly return," "1200% annual return," "guaranteed profits without loss," or "follow me to double your money" appear—practices strictly prohibited for legitimate securities investment consulting institutions.
• 🚩 Bypassing official app stores for downloads: Users are asked to download trading apps via links, QR codes, or installation packages. The apps cannot be found in app stores, and their names closely resemble those of legitimate brokerages.
• 🚩 Transfers to personal accounts or non-brokerage accounts: Deposit recipients are personal bank cards, corporate accounts of shell companies, or cryptocurrency addresses, rather than custodian bank or brokerage clearing accounts.
• 🚩 Dense posting of screenshots by group "shills": WeChat groups feature almost zero dissenting voices, with multiple accounts cyclically posting profits and order screenshots, while new members are immediately headhunted and diverted through private chats by "assistants."
• 🚩 Refusal of real-time market comparison: When victims check using market software, quotes in the virtual market do not match the real market, and customer service brushes it off with excuses like "independent institutional channels" or "data latency."

真实案例

• The "Yinghua Quantitative Strategy" platform exposed by media in 2026 brandished slogans of "100% monthly return, 1200% annual return," while the "AI quantification" in its livestreaming room was actually manual number manipulation in the backend. The platform operator was accused of swindling over 100 million yuan, with victims' withdrawal requests failing to arrive, accounts frozen, and countdown timers to fleeing appearing. Related reports also pointed out that such platforms are mostly controlled by overseas rings using shell companies to receive funds, leaving investors with almost no way to recover their money.
• In a major cross-border stock recommendation fraud case exposed by CCTV Finance, a man in Gansu trusted a livestreaming room "stock recommendation master" and invested through a virtual trading platform, ultimately being defrauded of 4.92 million yuan. Police investigation revealed that the fraud ring had set up a den in Cambodia, with an organizational structure divided into 6 tiers and sharing 96 case-related accounts to transfer funds. Following a full-chain crackdown, multiple prime suspects were captured.
• The Shanghai court sentenced the region's first AI fake livestream fraud case: three defendants used AI synthesized videos to impersonate well-known livestreamers selling goods, defrauding dozens of elderly people, with the mastermind sentenced to eleven months in prison. This case was cited as a typical precedent, signaling the judicial standard for sentencing new scams involving "AI face-swapping + livestreaming," which share the same origins as stock-recommendation pig-butchering scams, both using synthesized videos to build pseudo-authoritative personas.
• Media exposures in Financial 315 specials revealed that certain rings used AI face-swapping technology to replace public interview videos of prominent private equity figures with "stock recommendation livestreams," peddling virtual market indicators within high-imitation apps. Multiple concerned parties had to publicly declare that they did not recommend stocks on any platform. Such "fake stock god" videos circulate widely on short-video platforms, with individual views reaching hundreds of thousands.
• In May 2023, CCTV.com disclosed that a Hangzhou fraud company used free hotpot as bait to pitch a "cloud-raising cattle" investment project to the elderly, claiming an annualized return rate as high as 50%, illegally raising about 42 million yuan from over 600 elderly people within six months. In August 2024, the court sentenced the mastermind to seven years and six months in prison for the crime of fund-raising fraud, serving as a typical high-return pitch swindling scam. (Source: [https://m.nbd.com.cn/articles/2025-10-21/4099010.html](https://m.nbd.com.cn/articles/2025-10-21/4099010.html))
• In July 2024, Maanshan police cracked a major cross-border telecommunications network fraud case, arresting 48 ring members and involving 15 fraudulent apps with an amount totaling over 40 million yuan. Among them, a victim was lured into an "Enterprise WeChat group" to complete task-based scams and defrauded of 88,000 yuan. The ring had long entrenched itself overseas to commit fraud. (Source: [https://ah.ifeng.com/c/8b4WGXDuUFF](https://ah.ifeng.com/c/8b4WGXDuUFF))

Official Stance

• On August 3, 2026, the official WeChat account of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security reposted "Targeting Securities and Futures Crimes: The Traps Behind Livestream Stock Recommendations," warning the public to guard against livestream stock recommendation crimes that are upgrading through technologies like AI face-swapping and live streaming.
• On August 22, 2026, CCTV Finance exposed the major cross-border stock recommendation fraud case in Gansu, disclosing that a man was defrauded of 4.92 million yuan. Police conducted a full-chain arrest targeting 6 tiers and 96 case-related accounts, warning that "stock recommendation masters" fabricate the entire process.
• On June 10, 2026, the anti-fraud publicity month special article "Beware of New 'AI + Livestreaming' Traps" was released, classifying "AI digital human stock recommendations" and "AI stock selection fee-paying groups" as emerging illegal securities investment consulting traps.
• The Shanghai court delivered a first-instance judgment on the local region's first AI fake livestream fraud case, sentencing the mastermind to eleven months in prison, releasing a judicial signal of handling frauds utilizing AI synthesized videos with strict punishment.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Immediately refuse to download any "trading apps" from unofficial app stores, and select service providers only from the list of legitimate securities and futures business institutions published on the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
• ✅ Verify the identity of livestream anchors: Check their practice qualifications through the official website of the Securities Association of China; request anchors to conduct live video connections and reveal their faces for confirmation, as AI digital humans cannot perform real-time genuine interactions.
• ✅ Beware of "guaranteed returns" promises: Any behavior promising "guaranteed profits without loss" or "doubled monthly returns" is suspected of being illegal. After leaving the livestreaming room, cross-check whether virtual market quotes match public market software.
• ✅ Ensure funds only flow through regular custody: Before investing, confirm whether the deposit account is a same-name account with the brokerage or a bank three-party custody account. Immediately report any transfers made to personal bank cards, shell company accounts, or cryptocurrency addresses.
• ✅ Once you discover you have been defrauded, preserve evidence such as livestream recordings, group chat logs, transfer transaction histories, and app installation packages at the earliest opportunity. Report the case to 110 or local criminal investigation departments, and submit reporting clues via the "National Anti-Fraud Center App."