A 25-year-old man has been arrested for running an illegal business, which deleted online posts in order to receive money in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, the Dahe Daily reported on Monday.

The Jinshui district procuratorate of Zhengzhou made the decision to arrest the man, Li Wei, who made on average about 10,000 yuan ($1,642) a month from his home.

It said he had been conducting the business for about six months.

In September, the country's Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly issued judicial interpretations regarding the identification of people who were collecting money to delete online posts, clarifying that this activity is a crime.

Li decided to start the business after he watched a piece of news about deleting online posts on television five months earlier. He advertised his services on online chat services such as QQ to attract potential clients.

According to procurators, there are two common methods for deleting online posts. One is hacking and the other through connections with people who run websites. Li adopted the second method, acting as a middleman.

He made a profit of 50,000 yuan by helping his clients delete over 30 posts over the last five months.

Global Times