BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese e-commerce billionaire who faces a possible rape accusation in Minneapolis built his business by promising honesty in a market plagued by fraud and fakes.
Richard Liu, founder of JD.com, was arrested Friday and released a day later pending possible criminal charges. His company says he was back in Beijing on Monday.
The 45-year-old Liu is one of the most prominent members of a generation of Chinese tech entrepreneurs that includes Jack Ma of rival e-commerce outlet Alibaba Group and Ma Huateng of Tencent, a games and social media giant.
Liu's sales pitch when JD went online in 2003 was unusual: No counterfeits in a market that had suffered repeated scandals over fake and sometimes deadly milk, medicine and other goods.