AI Quantitative Illegal Stock Recommendation Fund Scam: Disguised as smart stock picking and copy trading, backend data tampering implemented for Ponzi scheme

Who Gets Targeted

The main victims are retail investors with some savings but lacking professional financial knowledge, middle-aged and elderly individuals, and white-collar workers eager to get rich overnight. These victims hold a blind superstition toward artificial intelligence and quantitative trading, believing that machine stock picking has a higher win rate, and are easily blinded by anti-intuitive high-yield promises such as 'monthly returns exceeding 150%' and 'daily returns of 3%'. Driven by false profit screenshots in short-video livestream rooms, they often start with small trial amounts to get a taste of success, and subsequently, driven by technological worship and greed, invest their life savings or even borrowed funds into the so-called copy-trading system, only to realize they have lost everything and suffer a complete psychological breakdown when the platform locks positions for a single harvest.

骗局怎么运作

• Livestreaming traffic generation and fake persona packaging: Scammers open financial livestreaming rooms on short-video platforms, where hosts dressed in suits pose as senior quantitative traders or AI technology experts, claiming to have Wall Street backgrounds and exclusive AI large models. By broadcasting regularly every day to explain stock market insider information and quantitative trading tactics, they attract retail investors lacking investment experience into exclusive fan groups, where accomplices are planted to post fake profit screenshots and high-return praise scripts to whip up a heated money-making atmosphere.
• Downloading illegal wealth management software and fund deposit operations: Once the victims are deeply brainwashed, the mentors in the group induce them to download forged quantitative applications not listed on app stores under the pretext of limited quotas. The software interface typically has a high-tech feel, displaying real-time fluctuating smart stock-picking return curves. Victims are required to transfer funds to designated private accounts or fake corporate accounts for copy-trading deposits, while in reality, the funds never enter the real stock market.
• Backend data tampering to create the illusion of exorbitant profits: After victims perform copy trading within the platform, they see their account balances surge frantically at a rate of 3% daily returns or even 150% monthly returns. These are entirely figures artificially manipulated by scammers in the backend, creating the illusion of successful investment through database modifications. Someplatforms also display fake holding records and transaction flows, and even allow small-scale withdrawals to completely dispel victims' doubts, inducing them to increase their investments.
• Multi-level rebates and MLM-style referral fission: To rapidly expand the size of the fund pool, platforms typically feature a built-in three-tier distribution rebate mechanism. If already-enrolled victims successfully invite friends and family to register and deposit, they can obtain a certain percentage commission of the downline's deposited amount. Under the temptation of exorbitant profits and rebate incentives, victims often actively transform into promoters of the scam, unknowingly helping scammers rope in more bagholders and forming a typical Ponzi fission structure.
• Single harvest, position locking, and shell-swapping getaway: When the size of the fund pool reaches a point where the MLM funding chain can no longer sustain itself, the platform restricts victim withdrawals under the pretext of system upgrades, regulatory violations, or abnormal market fluctuations. Subsequently, customer service loses contact, the livestreaming room closes, and the app is directly deregistered and abandoned. The same operating syndicate then changes the platform name and software shell, continuing to package new AI quantitative projects to restart the next round of fraud.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claiming fixed principal-guaranteed high returns such as '3% daily return' or 'over 150% monthly return' without any reasonable risk warnings, completely violating the basic laws of financial markets.
• 🚩 Recommended applications cannot be listed on official app stores and can only be downloaded and installed via web links or QR code configuration profiles, with funds transferred mostly into private accounts or corporate accounts of unknown origin.
• 🚩 Claiming that funds are handed over to AI systems for automated stock-picking and trading, but refusing to provide genuine securities brokerage custody vouchers, trading records, and fund flow reconciliation statements.
• 🚩 Employing tactics such as mentor guidance, insider information, and principal-and-return guarantees, inducing operations through livestream room order-calling and exclusive group order-calling, with platforms featuring built-in multi-level referral rebate mechanisms.
• 🚩 When encountering withdrawal difficulties, customer service demands the payment of margin fees, unfreezing fees, or requires depositing an equivalent amount to enable withdrawals, after which the platform directly loses contact or clears and resets data.

真实案例

• According to a report by 21Caijing in March 2026, a quantitative fund scheme boasting 'AI stock trading' with monthly returns exceeding 150% attracted a large number of retail investors to follow suit. A victim poured in 1.6 million yuan and lost everything, after which it was exposed that the funds never actually entered the stock market and it was entirely a Ponzi scheme of backend number tampering.
• According to media reports such as Chaipan Network, 'Huijing Quantitative' used high returns of 3% daily and over 1,000% annualized as bait to lure a large number of investors to deposit and copy trades. Later investigation confirmed that the platform not only harvested members by locking withdrawals, but its profit data was entirely tampered with in the backend; the operating syndicate had previously operated 'Zhongshi Research and Investment', which collapsed and directly transformed into 'Huijing Quantitative' to harvest again.
• According to disclosures by Financial Network, the Zhongshengming Quantitative AI wealth management scheme suffered a comprehensive position-locking thunderstorm, and the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau officially filed a case for investigation. The case involved illegal fundraising under the guise of AI quantitative wealth management, with estimated involved funds exceeding 300 million yuan, and a large amount of victims' funds being completely trapped and unrecoverable.
• In May 2020, the WoToken platform falsely claimed to possess Apollo smart robot arbitrage functions under the guise of providing digital currency value-added services, promising high static returns and rebating according to development member tiers. Judicial appraisal showed that between July 2018 and October 8, 2019, the platform registered a total of 715,249 members across 501 tiers, absorbing various digital currencies totaling over 7.769 billion yuan, and the main culprit was held criminally accountable by the court for the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes. (Source: [https://m.sohu.com/a/396363325_120051292/?pvid=000115_3w_a](https://m.sohu.com/a/396363325_120051292/?pvid=000115_3w_a))
• In March 2026, the main culprit of the US crypto Ponzi project EminiFX raised approximately $248 million from over 25,000 investors through the platform, promising to double funds within 5 months. The main culprit pleaded guilty to commodity fraud in 2023 and is currently serving a 9-year prison sentence. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has ordered him and his company to pay approximately $229 million in penalties. (Source: [https://m.163.com/dy/article/KO23SPBQ05568W0A.html](https://m.163.com/dy/article/KO23SPBQ05568W0A.html))

Official Stance

• In June 2026, the Shenzhen Securities Regulatory Bureau issued a risk warning, explicitly pointing out the need to be alert to three types of illegal stock recommendation tactics such as AI quantitative stock picking, reminding investors not to blindly trust the high-yield promises of so-called AI smart stock-picking software, and guarding against illegal financial activities.
• In August 2026, the Official WeChat Account of the Economic Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security reposted an article titled 'Targeting Securities and Futures Crimes: The Traps Behind Livestream Stock Recommendations', exposing new types of criminal methods involving illegal stock recommendations and market manipulation in livestream rooms, and calling on investors to stay away from illegal wealth management platforms.
• Zhuquefund Management Co., Ltd. and multiple compliant financial institutions issued risk warning announcements in April 2026, pointing out the need to be vigilant against illegal financial activities carried out under the names of fake stock trading software and AI stock trading, and reminding the public to conduct investment and wealth management through regular channels.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Resolutely refuse to download wealth management and stock trading software from any non-official app stores, and maintain an absolute zero-tolerance attitude toward so-called AI quantitative copy-trading programs that require installation via web links or configuration profiles.
• ✅ Verify fund flows: Regular securities investment funds must enter regulated third-party bank custody accounts or regular brokerage capital accounts, and absolutely never transfer or remit funds to any private accounts of unknown origin or unqualified corporate accounts.
• ✅ Recognize high-yield traps: Understand that principal-and-return guaranteed promises violating financial laws, such as 3% daily returns or over 150% monthly returns, are typical characteristics of Ponzi schemes, and the fantasy of getting rich overnight must be completely discarded.
• ✅ Upon encountering situations where recruiters demand referral rebates, restrict withdrawals under the pretext of system upgrades, or demand the payment of unfreezing fees, immediately stop transfer operations, preserve livestream recordings, chat logs, and transfer vouchers, and report the case to public security organs at the earliest opportunity.