On the morning of October 20, environmental volunteer Zhang Wenbin was taken away in Urumqi.
According to records in two articles from the WeChat public account “Seven-Hole Jade Knife” on October 21 and 23, his family recalled that he was taken away on his way to work from his residential community. The family could not contact him the next day and reported him missing. The local police checked the system and found that the people who took him away were from the Public Security Bureau of Wanzai County, Yichun, Jiangxi. Subsequently, the Jiangxi police called the family: he was suspected of extortion and blackmail, had been criminally detained, and asked them to send some clothes, and that he would likely be escorted back to Wanzai around October 24.
On the afternoon of October 23, the family received a notification that Wanzai had sent them a document via SF Express. As of this day, the Wanzai police had not issued a public announcement.
Zhang Wenbin’s public account had written about Wanzai County twice. In January 2018, it was about a sewage outlet by the Jinjiang River in the Wanzai Industrial Park; in May 2023, it was about the lithium slag库 of a lithium battery enterprise in the Wanzai Industrial Park.
I flipped through all the articles I could find on his public account “Zero Distance Pollution Special Forces,” totaling 183 articles, the earliest being from September 2017 and the most recent from March of this year.
Wanzai County belongs to Yichun City, which is a concentrated area for the lithium battery industry.
In January 2018, his public account published an article signed “Zero Distance,” about a sewage outlet by the Jinjiang River in the Wanzai Industrial Park. One outlet exceeded the standard three consecutive times, with chemical oxygen demand reaching 1536 milligrams per liter, more than 15 times the emission standard.
On January 13, they reported to the Wanzai County Environmental Protection Bureau. People from the Environmental Protection Bureau came to see, said it was a rainwater discharge outlet, and that it was flowing with rainwater and engineering slurry. They would reply after sampling and investigation. When the article was published, it was written: “But to this day, there has been no reply from the Wanzai County Environmental Protection Bureau.” Whether there was a reply afterwards, the public account did not write again.
On April 13, 2019, volunteers went to Yifeng, also in Yichun, to investigate a preserved egg factory. Wastewater was flowing out of one of the factories, and when tested with pH test strips, the value was between 12 and 13.
At 3:35 PM, they called the Yifeng Environmental Protection Bureau to report. The person on the other end said that today is Saturday and they could not go to the site, but someone would go on Monday. A volunteer replied: “If you say you can’t come to the site on Saturday, then I will publish an article reflecting this matter.”
At 3:50 PM, before receiving a call back, the volunteer posted on Weibo. Five minutes later, the Environmental Protection Bureau called and said they would arrive immediately. At 4:21 PM, law enforcement officers arrived at the scene and first asked who reported it, then said:
▲ Yifeng Environmental Protection Bureau Law Enforcement Officers · According to Zero Distance Pollution Special Forces, April 13, 2019
“We are already on site, why are you posting on Weibo? Take it down.”
On May 27, 2023, his official account specifically mentioned Jiangxi Nanshi Lithium New Material Co., Ltd. in the Wanzai Industrial Park. The article stated that this company had two lithium slag storage sites with damaged roofs, no leachate collection or seepage prevention; vehicles transporting lithium slag leaked and raised dust along the way, “only sprinkling water at intersections to cope with inspections.”
Three days later, the official account published another short article: they had reported Nanshi Lithium's problems to the relevant departments, and the company “quickly rectified the issues that same day, reportedly overnight,” repairing the slag库, building baffles and rain-sewage diversion facilities, using large trucks to haul away excess lithium slag, and even “taking photos of the rectification site for the whistleblower.”
The title of the short article was “Lithium Slag库 Quickly Rectified After Complaint, This is the Correct Attitude Towards Environmental Issues,” praising the company for its “unreserved, prompt, and swift rectification attitude is good.”
The official account “Seven-Hole Jade Knife” said that Nanshi Lithium's subsequent business was taken over and operated by companies such as “Tianzhuo New Materials.”
In the three articles written by Wanzai, there is no mention of asking companies for money or compensation. The police have not said whether this case is related to this company.
The roof of the lithium slag库 in Wanzai Industrial Park is damaged (Source: Lingjuli Pollution Special Team)
Standing water next to the lithium slag库 (Source: Lingjuli Pollution Special Team)
Nanshi Lithium Industry rectification site, large trucks transporting away lithium slag (Source: Lingjuli Pollution Special Team)
April 2019, Yifeng, volunteers use test strips to test wastewater outside a preserved egg factory (Source: Lingjuli Pollution Special Team)
May 2017, Zhang Wenbin and another volunteer went to Sishui, Shandong. The two were volunteers for the China Green Development Association at the time.
Local villagers reported that a vermicelli factory had been discharging black and foul-smelling sewage into the Chuxiashi River since 1997. The two were beaten by several people while investigating a suspected seepage pit in Kongjia Village, Yangliu Town. Caixin.com reported on it that day.
March 21, 2019, Jiangsu Xiangshui Tianjiayihua Chemical Plant exploded. Zhang Wenbin and another volunteer rushed to the scene that afternoon.
On March 25, a missing person notice said that he sent his last WeChat location to a volunteer at 7:26 am, and his phone was answered at 8:19 am. The other party said: “I am his friend, he went to the toilet.” After that, the phone was turned off.
On the same day, police officers from the Chengdong Police Station of the Xiangshui County Public Security Bureau told Xin Jing Bao that Zhang Wenbin was taken away by the police for investigation, and two of his own ID cards were found on him. Subsequent reports by Xin Jing Bao clarified that they were one card each before and after the change of his registered residence.
At 2 p.m., he came out of the police station and told a reporter from Xin Jing Bao that the summons stated that he was suspected of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and the police mainly asked about the content of the explosion's core site posted online. The police have not confirmed this charge.
In April 2023, he was beaten again in Shanxi.
This time it was in Xing County, Shanxi, where he went at the request of someone.
Xiegou Coal Mine in Xing County belongs to Shanxi Coking Coal Group. On April 28, 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment publicly reported on this coal mine with the title: “Shanxi Coking Coal Group Xiegou Coal Mine Perfunctorily Rectifies Prominent Ecological Problems Caused by Coal Development.”
In November of the same year, the environmental organization Friends of Nature filed a public interest environmental lawsuit with the Luliang Intermediate People's Court, which was accepted in June 2022.
Friends of Nature said that in August 2022, their lawyers saw the coal mine discharging black wastewater through a culvert under a bridge into the Lanyi River, a first-level tributary of the Yellow River. The water sample sent for testing “severely exceeded the limit values of the Class III standard of the “Surface Water Environmental Quality Standard” (GB3838-2002).”
On March 9, 2023, the Luliang Intermediate Court held a pre-trial conference. Friends of Nature said that the defendant's lawyer claimed at the meeting that comprehensive rectification had been carried out.
A month later, on April 13, the person in charge of Friends of Nature found Zhang Wenbin on WeChat. According to the chat screenshots seen by Dingduan News, she said: “We sued Xiegou Coal Mine in Xing County, Luliang, and need to go and see if the company is illegally discharging pollutants. We have been to the site 3 times ourselves and caught them in the act once.”
At around 3:32 p.m. on April 16, Zhang Wenbin sent back a video from the scene, saying: “It is still discharging, but the amount is very small, and there is a smell.”
The black water under the culvert bridge near Xie’gou Coal Mine, photographed by Zhang Wenbin on April 16, 2023 (Source: Friends of Nature)
His public account published a long article on April 19 about his experience that evening.
According to his account in the article, he walked to the factory gate and used his phone to photograph the uncovered slag trucks and the thick layer of coal slag on the road. A stranger approached him and asked if he had taken photos, demanding that he delete them. He said he hadn't and turned to walk towards his car, but the other person grabbed his clothes and called for help.
He broke free and got into the car. As he was turning around, another person from outside pulled on the driver's side door, and with a tug-of-war, the door was damaged.
This car was rented by him in Taiyuan. The owner had not yet registered it and was using a temporary license plate.
He got out of the car to call the police, and people from the coal mine gathered around. While waiting for the police, a man with a square face emerged from the crowd and, without saying a word, first slapped him, then punched him in the head, neck, and upper body, and kicked him while holding him on the ground, until a bystander pulled the man away.
The man left before the police arrived.
He was sent to Xingxian People's Hospital. The next morning, someone claiming to be the mine manager came to his hospital room to discuss a “settlement,” but he did not respond. That afternoon, the police gave him a case acceptance receipt stating that “the case of intentional injury to Zhang Wenbin has been accepted.”
Subsequently, a “Verification Report on Information Circulating Online Regarding Xie’gou Coal Mine,” dated April 17 and signed by the Xie’gou Mine Party Committee, circulated online. The report claimed that Zhang Wenbin “refused to provide identification” and drove an unregistered vehicle to the work site to “secretly take videos and photos,” concluding that:
▲ The circulating Xie’gou Mine Party Committee “Verification Report”
“Zhang Wenbin, under the guise of environmental supervision, was actually attempting to extort money… He is a fake volunteer.”
The report also stated that for those who “cause losses and negative adverse effects to the enterprise and individuals,” legal responsibility would be pursued through judicial procedures against the parties involved and the platform.
On April 18, Xingxian police issued a statement:
▲ Police Report · Xingxian Police
“Zhang Moubin attempted to drive away, and a dispute arose because the vehicle bumped into Hu Mou Tao, who was behind the car. Wu Mou, a staff member at the slag库, then assaulted Zhang Moubin… Wu Mou, the perpetrator of the illegal act, was given administrative detention and a fine.”
An appendix to the long article published on April 19 listed Zhang Wenbin’s four objections to the report, one of which stated: “The sole reason for the dispute was that people from Xie’gou Coal Mine demanded that I delete the photos and not let me leave.”
In the second paragraph of the long article, the public account wrote about him:
▲ Zero Distance Pollution Special Forces · April 19, 2023
“He has neither a “criminal record” nor has he ever “extorted” enterprises.”
Three and a half years later, Jiangxi police informed the family by phone: he was suspected of extortion.
The damaged car door (Source: Zero Distance Pollution Special Forces)
Zhang Wenbin receiving treatment at Xingxian People's Hospital (Source: Zero Distance Pollution Special Forces)
On March 25, 2018, volunteers publicly reported online that a furniture drying plant in Jingba Town, Nankang District, Ganzhou, was emitting black smoke. In the early morning of two days later, the Nankang District Environmental Protection Bureau responded on Weibo: Enforcement officers investigated the scene, and the reported situation was “partially true.” The boiler that the factory was using for illegal pollutant emissions was sealed on-site, and a rectification order was issued.
On April 21, 2021, the Central Environmental Protection Inspection Team was in Jiangxi. Volunteers found industrial waste stored in non-compliance, piled in the open, scattered in the grass, and buried underground next to a废弃厂房 (abandoned factory building) in the industrial park of Jinxi County, Fuzhou. A total of 6 types were sampled.
The part buried underground was covered with at least 1 meter of good soil. They made a drill themselves to obtain the samples. In the afternoon of the same day, the case handlers from Jinxi arrived at the scene and began digging the next day. They dug for 4 days and still hadn't finished.
On March 27, 2018, the Nankang District Environmental Protection Bureau's response on Weibo (Image source: Zero Distance Pollution Special Team).
In April 2021, industrial waste dug out from the Jinxi Industrial Park (Image source: Zero Distance Pollution Special Team).
On October 23, an article on the WeChat public account “七孔玉刀” (Seven-holed Jade Knife) stated that there were rumors that two local Jiangxi volunteers were taken away with Zhang Wenbin, and that the three of them had “together received over 100,000 yuan from enterprises.” The same article also stated that it is currently unknown how this money was obtained.
Whether taking money from enterprises constitutes extortion depends on how the money was obtained.
Extortion is stipulated in Article 274 of the Criminal Law. The article only specifies the crime and the penalty. What constitutes extortion is determined by two factors in judicial practice: whether there was an intent to illegally possess the property of others, and whether threats or coercion were used. Both must be present simultaneously.
The “Reference Materials for Criminal Cases,” compiled by the Criminal Adjudication Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, Issue No. 152, included a case where a person was convicted of extortion for reporting pollution.
A cement factory in Honghu, Hubei, did not conduct an environmental impact assessment, and its noise and dust affected nearby villagers. A villager, Chen Mouguo, reported to the environmental protection department and then “borrowed” 50,000 yuan from the factory, threatening to continue reporting if the money was not lent. He eventually received 40,000 yuan.
Both the first and second trials convicted him of extortion. The Jingzhou Intermediate People's Court later rejected his appeal. On September 15, 2025, the Hubei Provincial Higher People's Court retried the case and changed the verdict to not guilty for Chen Mouguo. The reasoning for the judgment stated:
▲ “Reference Materials for Criminal Cases” No. 1773 · Reasoning for the Judgment
“Reporting is legal and well-founded, and conducted in a standardized manner. Even if it has a certain deterrent effect and causes concern to the victim, it does not possess the coerciveness in the sense of criminal law and cannot be considered as threats or coercion in the crime of extortion.”
The first and second trials held that Chen Mouguo could have applied for mediation or filed a civil lawsuit and should not have directly demanded money from the factory. The reasoning for the judgment stated that this view “is a misinterpretation of the intent to illegally possess property.”
Chen Mouguo's acquittal had a premise: he himself was suffering from the pollution from this factory. The same reasoning for the judgment also described another scenario:
▲ Same Reasoning for the Judgment
“For example, although the content of the report is objectively true, if the perpetrator is not a victim of the relevant incident or their close relative, but an unrelated third party who uses the report as a threat to demand property, it conforms to Article 274 of the Criminal Law, and criminal responsibility for extortion should be pursued.”
Zhang Wenbin is not a villager affected by pollution. According to this reasoning, the question for him is whether he used the report as a threat to demand property.
He also operates a public account, which involves another line of reasoning. In 2013, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate's Judicial Interpretation No. 6 on handling criminal cases such as online defamation stipulated that “threatening or coercing others by publishing, deleting, or otherwise processing information on the internet to demand public or private property” shall be convicted and punished as extortion if the amount is relatively large or the act is committed multiple times.
In other words, writing an article exposing pollution itself does not constitute this crime; it is only a crime if it is done in exchange for money, based on whether the article is published or deleted.
In summary, reporting and extortion are distinguished by these factors:
1 Whether the content of the report is true
2 Whether there was a threat to report, publish, or delete the article
3 Whether property was demanded from the enterprise
In Tanghe, Henan, three villagers, Li Xu and two others, were convicted of extortion in 2016 for reporting and seeking compensation for dust pollution from a ceramic factory that affected their farmland. In 2020, the Nanyang Intermediate People's Court overturned the original verdict due to "unclear facts and insufficient evidence." Subsequently, the Fangcheng County Procuratorate decided not to prosecute, deeming the trio's actions did not constitute extortion.
In Chaoan, Guangdong, Guo Li, the father of a child victim of melamine-tainted milk powder, sought compensation from the milk powder factory and exposed the issue to the media. He was convicted of extortion and sentenced to five years in prison. On April 7, 2017, the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court retried the case and overturned the verdict, acquitting him on the grounds that "it cannot be determined that Guo Li's actions exceeded the scope of civil disputes."
The individuals in these two cases were either the victims themselves or their close relatives. Zhang Wenbin was the one who went to the scene to take photos, collect samples, write articles, and report to relevant authorities.
Article 147, Paragraph 1 of the "Ecology and Environment Law Code," which came into effect on August 15 this year, states:
▲ Article 147, Paragraph 1 of the "Ecology and Environment Law Code"
"The state encourages social organizations and volunteers to engage in public welfare activities for ecological environmental protection in accordance with the law."
Wen Liyu Chen of 李宇琛
October 23, 2026
