DJI’s former sales VP detained in China on bribery charges, accused of “huge” illicit gains

Chinese authorities have criminally detained DJI’s former Vice President of Sales on suspicion of accepting bribes during a five-year tenure that coincided with the drone giant’s most turbulent period of global regulatory pressure. The executive, identified only by surname Yuan, oversaw DJI’s entire global sales operation from May 2019 through May 2024.

The detention was first reported as an exclusive by Chinese digital publication Jiemian News on February 15 and independently confirmed the same day by Pengpai News (The Paper), one of China’s most prominent state-affiliated news outlets, through its own sources.

• The development: DJI’s former sales VP “Yuan” has been criminally detained by Chinese public security authorities in February 2026, accused of accepting bribes as a non-state employee.
• The scope: Yuan was “fully responsible” for DJI’s global sales strategy from 2019-2024. Investigators describe “huge amounts of illicit gains” obtained through channel partnerships and order allocations.
• The pattern: This is DJI’s second major corruption crisis. In 2019, an internal probe exposed CN¥1 billion ($150 million) in supply chain fraud involving 45 employees.
• DJI’s response: The company has not publicly commented on the detention. DroneXL has reached out to DJI for comment.

Yuan faces China’s private-sector bribery charge after five years running DJI sales

Yuan is charged with accepting bribes as a non-state employee (非国家工作人员受贿罪), a specific criminal offense under Article 163 of China’s Criminal Law used for private-sector executives rather than government officials. Under the 2021 amendments to the Criminal Law, the charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for cases involving “especially huge amounts” or “especially serious circumstances.”

According to TechNode, which also covered the story, Yuan is suspected of accepting money through “channel partnerships, order allocations and other business arrangements” during his tenure. That detail matters. It points to corruption in how DJI’s products reached the market, not how they were built.

Public records show Yuan held the VP title from May 2019 to May 2024 and was fully responsible for the company’s sales operations. The exact amount of alleged illicit gains has not been disclosed, but investigators used the Chinese legal term for “huge amounts” (巨额), which in similar corporate bribery cases typically refers to sums well into the millions of yuan.

The case has entered judicial proceedings in China. Yuan’s full name has not been publicly released, following standard Chinese reporting practice for criminal suspects.

This is DJI’s second corruption crisis in seven years

DJI has been down this road before, though the 2019 scandal looked very different. In January of that year, the company revealed an internal corruption probe that uncovered an estimated CN¥1 billion ($150 million) in losses over 2018 alone. That investigation found 45 employees involved in supply chain fraud. DJI fired 29 and turned 16 over to police. A company spokeswoman told AFP the findings were “just the tip of the iceberg” and predicted over 100 people would be implicated.

The mechanics of the 2019 scandal were straightforward. Procurement staff took kickbacks from suppliers who charged DJI double or triple market prices for components. Some conspired with R&D employees to disqualify legitimate suppliers, leaving only corrupt ones in the bidding pool. DJI estimated its average purchase prices had been inflated by more than 20% across the board.

In May 2020, Yicai Global reported that two former DJI purchasing officers, Lv Long and Yi Dan, were sentenced to prison for accepting CN¥3.63 million in kickbacks from a single supplier, Weixinrui, which had supplied DJI with CN¥75 million worth of products between 2016 and 2018.

The 2019 case was a buy-side problem: corruption in what DJI paid for parts. This new case is a sell-side problem: alleged corruption in how DJI distributed and sold its products. Different corruption vector, same company.

Yuan’s tenure overlapped with DJI’s most volatile period and its distribution controversies

Yuan ran DJI’s global sales from May 2019 through May 2024, a five-year window that covers some of the most consequential events in the company’s history. DJI faced escalating U.S. sanctions pressure, placement on the Commerce Department’s Entity List in December 2020, Congressional efforts to ban its products, and the passage of Section 1709 of the 2025 NDAA that ultimately led to the FCC adding DJI to the Covered List on December 23, 2025.

During the same period, DJI’s distribution practices came under separate scrutiny in Europe. In October 2025, Italy’s competition authority launched an investigation into DJI and its Italian distributor Nital SpA for allegedly pressuring retailers to maintain fixed prices on DJI Enterprise drones. That probe, which could carry fines exceeding $400 million, specifically targeted DJI’s sales channel behavior: monitoring retailer pricing, threatening supply interruptions, and blocking parallel imports.

There is no public evidence connecting the Italian antitrust investigation to Yuan’s detention. But both cases raise the same structural question: how tightly did DJI control its sales channels, and who profited from that control?

DJI also deployed a network of suspected shell companies to sell rebranded drones through alternative U.S. distribution channels, a strategy that backfired and contributed to the broadened FCC ban. Security researcher Konrad Iturbe documented the first shell company FCC filings appearing in March 2024, two months before Yuan’s departure in May. Whether Yuan had any involvement in or knowledge of the shell company strategy is unknown, but the distribution network he built over five years was the foundation those entities operated on.

The alleged corruption maps directly onto Yuan’s authority over DJI’s global sales

A vice president who was “fully responsible” for all global sales for five years held enormous influence over which distributors got product allocation, which channel partners received favorable terms, and how orders flowed through DJI’s system worldwide. The corruption alleged by Chinese investigators, through “channel partnerships and order allocations” according to TechNode’s reporting, maps directly onto those powers.

DJI’s valuation currently sits at 84 billion yuan (~$11.5 billion) according to the 2025 Hurun Global Unicorn List, as noted by Chinese tech outlet IT之家 (ITHome). The company is one of China’s most valuable private technology firms, with operations across more than 100 countries. A sales VP controlling global distribution for a company of that scale handles billions of dollars in channel revenue.

DJI has not issued any public statement on Yuan’s detention. DroneXL has reached out to DJI for comment and will update this article with any response.

DroneXL’s Take

I’ve been covering DJI for years, and what strikes me about this case is the timing and the target. The 2019 corruption scandal was about procurement, the back end of DJI’s operation. This one is about sales, the front end. And Yuan ran sales during the exact period when DJI’s distribution strategy became the most politically consequential part of its business.

Think about what was happening in DJI’s sales operation between 2019 and 2024. The company was navigating U.S. sanctions, building alternative distribution channels, managing a global dealer network under increasing geopolitical strain, and trying to maintain market share in hostile regulatory environments. That’s a sales operation under extraordinary pressure, with enormous amounts of money flowing through channel partnerships that had both commercial and strategic significance.

I’m not going to pretend to know whether this case connects to any of those larger dynamics. Chinese corporate bribery cases are often exactly what they appear to be: an executive skimming money through the channels they control. But the Italian price-fixing probe targeted DJI’s distribution practices in Europe. Now Chinese authorities are prosecuting DJI’s former global sales chief for allegedly taking bribes through those same types of channel arrangements. Two separate investigations, two different countries, both pointing at the same part of DJI’s business.

Expect this story to get picked up by U.S. lawmakers as further ammunition against DJI. It won’t matter that Chinese authorities are the ones prosecuting the case, or that DJI pursuing internal corruption is arguably a sign of governance working as intended. The headline “DJI executive arrested for bribery” writes itself for anyone looking to justify the ban.

Within six months, I’d expect DJI to release some kind of public statement about strengthened anti-corruption measures in its sales organization. They did it after 2019, and the pressure to demonstrate clean governance is even higher now with the FCC ban in place and international distribution under a microscope.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.