A former executive of a prominent gaming company has received a death sentence for the murder of the company’s founder, Lin Qi, in 2020.
Xu Yao was found guilty of poisoning Mr. Qi’s food in December 2020 following a professional disagreement. The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court issued the verdict.
Lin Qi, the founder of Yoozoo Games, a gaming company closely associated with Game of Thrones and the Netflix series The Three-Body Problem, had struck a lucrative deal with Netflix.
However, tensions escalated when an executive named Xu Yao, who headed Yoozoo’s subsidiary “Three-Body Universe,” discovered that his name was omitted from the Netflix deal announcement, despite Mr. Qi being credited as the executive producer, as reported by the Sun.
This led the disgruntled former TV executive to devise a plan to end Mr. Qi’s life. Taking cues from the TV series Breaking Bad, Mr. Yao established a laboratory in Shanghai, where he experimented with over 100 toxins procured from the dark web, testing them on small, defenseless animals.
Although initial suspicions suggested Lin Qi was poisoned through cups of Chinese tea, it was later disclosed that Xu Yao had spiked a bottle of probiotic tablets with poisonous pills, which were consumed by Mr. Qi and several colleagues.
Mr. Qi fell ill shortly after and was hospitalized on December 16, 2020, exhibiting symptoms of mercury poisoning. Subsequently, he succumbed to a neurotoxin from puffer fish and passed away ten days later on Christmas Day, despite extensive medical intervention.
In 2000, Mr. Qi was ranked 870th among China’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, with a net worth of 6.8 billion yuan ($1 billion), according to the BBC.
