Drone Photo: VCG

Police in Shanghai's Minhang District recently cracked a criminal case involving the illegal unlocking of drones, in which a perpetrator provides drone-unlocking services under the guise of "legitimate services" such as drone repairing and debugging, state broadcaster CCTV News reported on Sunday.

The offender was later sentenced by the Minhang District People's Court to six months in prison, which was suspended for one year, and fined 2,000 yuan ($297.33), with all the illegal gains ordered to be confiscated, said the report. 

Acting on leads, Shanghai police arrested a suspect surnamed Xue and seized multiple computers, mobile phones and other devices used to commit the crime. Xue was found to have provided paid unlocking services at prices ranging from 500 to 1,500 yuan each time, reaping more than 20,000 yuan in illegal gains. The court convicted Xue of providing programs used to intrude into other people's computer information systems.

Illegally intruding others' drone flight control system violates the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China - listed as the crimes of illegally controlling other's computer information system; providing programs and tools for intruding into or illegally controlling other's computer information system; and damaging computer information systems, according to the law. 

Global Times