Sichuan's securities bureau said Sun Zheyuan fabricated false production-disruption stories, then traded soda ash futures and made 85,028.85 yuan in illicit profit.
China's Sichuan Securities Regulatory Bureau has penalized individual investor Sun Zheyuan for using AI tools to mass-produce false information about soda ash production and trading soda ash futures while the rumors were circulating. The regulator confiscated 85,028.85 yuan in trading gains and imposed a 400,000 yuan fine, bringing the total penalty to 485,028.85 yuan. Investigators said Sun controlled the Baidu Baijia account "帝侃" and published 17 fabricated articles built around two false claims: that a soda ash producer's boiler failure would halt a production line for at least six months, and that the Alxa earthquake had damaged a factory. The 17 articles drew a combined 8,794 reads within a day of publication, prompted investor verification requests to a listed company and complaints to a regulatory reporting platform. Sun argued the articles caused no substantive impact, that his futures profits were unrelated to the false information, and that he had a long-term mental illness. The Sichuan bureau rejected those defenses, saying his intent was clear, he failed to prove he could not recognize or control his conduct at the time, and profits earned from futures trading during the dissemination of false information can be directly identified as illegal gains.