This is a weird one. I suspect more of these sort of cases will happen as local officials attempt to balance their books.

TBDetermined if this is about VPN usage or about taxes / income declaration.

The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on 18 August. The notice said Ma had used “unauthorised channels” to connect to international networks to work for a Turkish company.

The police confiscated the 1.058m yuan (£120,651) Ma had earned as a software developer between September 2019 and November 2022, describing it as “illegal income”, as well as fining him 200 yuan (£23).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rivate-network