A police officer wanted to play a game of League of Legends with his friends in an Internet café. While playing, he met a wanted criminal, who incidentally was also the rank 1 player of the Chinese LoL server Ionia. A story that could hardly be more curious.
Imagine you're a police officer and after work you want to relax and play a few rounds of League of Legends at the local Internet café and you run into a wanted criminal. This can only happen in those countries, because the Internet café culture in China, Japan and South Korea is much more established than in Europe or America.
In Asia, gaming is so integrated into society that cops and criminals share the same hobbies - in this case to the disadvantage for the LoL pro. The Rank 1 player was announced over the Internet café's loudspeakers, which is a common sign of respect in Internet cafés when high-ranking players start the game.... So the internet cafe wanted to pay respect to the player, but pretty much ruined his day with it.
The officer, Zhang Yihao, just wanted to know what this top player looked like and quickly realized that he was a wanted criminal. He called for reinforcements, who arrested the player, as can be seen in the video footage below.
According to a report by Baijiahao, the wanted man - who was not named in the report - was allegedly involved in a civil assault case, but police had never managed to arrest him.
Even though Esports is very respected in Asia, and the LPL is one of the most important League of Legends leagues, his prominence didn't protect him in this case. Rather, it has hurt him and his LoL career, the Rank 1 player will probably have a hard time keeping his place from inside the prison.
So you guys out there better stay clean and enter our giveaway!
If you wanna stay up to date on all gaming & esports topics, you really should be subscribed to our newsletter, signed in to MyEarlyGame and be a part of our Discord server.