Man sentenced for exploiting AI platform apis, illegally generating content and stealing compute power

A court in Shanghai recently delivered a verdict in the city's first case involving the fraudulent use of AI signatures and the theft of large model computing power. The case centered on an individual, Mr. Zong, who began exploiting an AI platform's API interfaces in December 2025 after learning how to call them through self-study tutorials. Mr. Zong bypassed the platform's security to create a proxy website, which he used to sell AI image and video generation services at a low price. In reality, these services utilized the paid computing resources of the original platform. Despite multiple platform upgrades, he managed to circumvent defenses until the victimized company reported the anomaly in March of this year. His activities included using AI to create automated scripts to register nearly 300,000 free accounts to form a rotating pool. Furthermore, he employed AI tools to automate the forgery of electronic signatures, successfully bypassing the platform's security layers. The investigation revealed he made over 290,000 illegal calls and profited over 34,000 yuan from reselling the generated services. The Xuwei District Court ultimately sentenced Mr. Zong to three years in prison, suspended for three years, and fined him 40,000 RMB for the crime of illegally obtaining computer system data.