The Family of an Anti-Fraud Blogger Killed Over a Million-Yuan Bounty Speaks Out

For two years the family of Huizjian — the online handle of Wu Kai, a blogger who spent his last years documenting Southeast Asian fraud syndicates — has not spoken in public, because it had almost nothing to say. His parents died before he did and he kept little contact with other relatives; he never once mentioned being threatened. They learned of his death from the police, a month after it happened, the family told a Beijing News reporter in the first interview they have given.

The story behind the silence is the story of China's fraud-compound economy. Huizjian published investigations into the "electric fraud" compounds (电诈) that operate across Southeast Asia, many staffed by trafficked Chinese workers. In August 2024, after he reported on a syndicate run from Cambodia by a boss named Liu Ren, a bounty of one million yuan was placed on his head by syndicate figures, according to court records and state media. That November he was kidnapped in Guangdong by men impersonating police officers, driven to Dingnan County in Jiangxi, and beaten to death.

The courts have answered part of it. Guangdong's High Court upheld a second-instance ruling in which the principal kidnapper, Zhao Bing, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and thirteen co-defendants were convicted. The part the courts cannot reach is the man believed to have commissioned the killing, known in that world as "Major" (少校), who remains abroad and un-arrested.

Details that surfaced this week sharpen the picture of his last days. His final WeChat Moments post, published the day before he died, warned friends not to discuss "problems with my articles" or "PR requests" on the app — he wrote that someone was still trying to lay a trap for him, evidently aware he was being hunted. Separate reporting found that weeks earlier, intermediaries had asked around for his home address and car-plate details, information that eventually reached the bounty's backers.

His death became a test of the state's sprawling campaign against the scam compounds, and the campaign's answer has been deliberately loud. In June, Liu Ren himself was arrested abroad and escorted back to China. The Paper's editorial page put the demand plainly: overseas is not beyond the law, and the campaign will not stand down until the fraud industry is destroyed.

What the family's interview adds is quieter, and in its way more sobering. The people closest to a man hunted for what he published had no idea he was in danger, because he never told them. The verdicts are final and upheld; the bounty's issuer is still out there, and the case's unfinished business is abroad.