As a result of an internal anti-corruption investigation, Marvel Rivals developer NetEase has charged nine of their employees of engaging in both money laundering and bribery.
According to multiple sources who spoke to the Chinese news outlet Leifeng, as translated via Game Developer, seven developers and two then-senior executives were caught after NetEase conducted an internal anti-corruption investigation into their own operations (their second since September 2023).
The employees are charged with attempting to launder roughly ¥2 billion yuan (around $276.5 million USD), though they only managed to get away with somewhere between ¥800 million to ¥1 billion CNY ($110.6 million to $138.2 million USD).
Bloomberg further reports that the employees were also charged with bribery and purchasing traffic to promote NetEase’s top products, while Eurogamer adds that all nine of the supposed perpetrators have since been fired over the bribery charge and had their names removed from the country’s internal systems.
Meanwhile, the news outlet YiCai Global reports that the two senior level employees involved in the sceheme were Marketing General Manager and former Esports Division Chief Xiang Lang, and former Head of Distribution and Marketing Center Jin Yuchen.
In an internal notice, NetEase admitted that an anti-graft investigation revealed the incidents occurred primarily within those departments. Further, those working under Yang were the ones accused of buying traffic.
Along with individuals from outside the company being involved, twenty-seven unnamed companies supposedly connected to the financial crimes were also blacklisted by NetEase. However, the details of their involvement have yet to be disclosed.
To this end, in a statement provided to Eurogamer, a NetEase spokesperson told the outlet that Chinese police were now investigation, but declined to provide any further details regarding the situation.
One of China’s major tech giants, NetEase’s recent video game releases include Once Human (via subsidiary Starry Studio), Marvel Rivals, and Diablo Immortal, which they co-developed with Blizzard Entertainment.
At current, the fallout from NetEase’s anti-corruption investigation is not expected to greatly impact the company’s larger operations.