China’s leading search engine Baidu is in full damage control mode following an investigative report into illegal online gambling advertising.

On Sunday, the Beijing News ran a report detailing how online betting operators were hijacking corporate ad links on Baidu. Users who clicked on these links were sent to unauthorized gambling sites rather than to the companies the ads claimed to be promoting.

The gambling operators apparently registered corporate accounts with Baidu using the names of legitimate companies that had failed to register with Baidu. The resulting links appeared in Baidu results with the ‘V’ symbol indicating a verified corporate account.

These accounts were opened via third-party marketing services that require little to no verification of identity from clients. One such agent claimed to conduct most of its business with advertising clients via the popular QQ messaging app.