BEIJING (Reuters) -Police in the southwestern city of Chengdu said they had arrested a 39-year-old man surnamed Chen on suspicion of opening a casino, according to a notice on Wednesday.
The person, who it described as Chen Moujie, has been arrested in accordance with the law and a further investigation is ongoing, the notice said. The term “mou” is one China often uses to partially anonymise the name of suspects.
Streaming platform operator DouYu International on Tuesday said that its chief executive, Chen Shaojie, had been arrested by Chengdu police on Nov. 16 but that it had not received any official notice of investigation against Chen or a reason for arrest. Shares in DouYu fell 6% after the statement. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
State media outlet Xinhua and local outlet wallstreetcn both reported that the police statement referred to the arrest of Chen Shaojie.
The Chengdu police declined to comment beyond their statement.
Chen founded DouYu in 2014 and grew the company into China’s leading video game streaming platform in China by number of users.
In 2020, Tencent proposed a merger between DouYu and its rival Huya, which Tencent also controls, to form a $10 billion streaming behemoth to rival Amazon’s Twitch in the United States before the deal was blocked on antitrust grounds in 2021.
Gambling is illegal in China and authorities have in recent years been cracking down harder on such activities, especially those happening online.
In May 2023, China’s cyberspace watchdog launched an on-site inspection of DouYu, stationing a group at the company for a month to supervise the platform as it addressed problems, including pornography content. Authorities have in the past also accused DouYu of hosting gambling content.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom and Brenda Goh; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Gerry Doyle)
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