Reporter held in China for releasing fake stories

A reporter was detained in China for releasing untrue and unverified stories about a company to gain money and fame, police said.

Chen Yongzhou, a journalist with the New Express based in Guangzhou city, confessed that he had continuously released a series of unverified and false reports against engineering company Zoomlion at the request of others, Xinhua cited police as saying Friday.

Chen fabricated facts and wrote more than 10 reports based on supplied materials from Sep 29, 2012 to Aug 8, 2013 about Zoomlion's "financial problems" without verification, bringing huge losses to the company and its share prices, police said.

The reporter would like to apologise to the Zoomlion, the stock investors and his own family members, and warned his peers to "learn a lesson from myself", he was quoted by police as saying.

Chen was caught Oct 18 in Guangzhou from Changsha, capital of China's Hunan province where Zoomlion is based, and was detained on suspicion of damaging business reputation.

According to the Changsha City Public Security Bureau, they received complaints from Zoomlion on Chen's false reports Sep 9, and after investigation, detained Chen with the help of police.