I worked in China for a number of years. If there's one lesson I took from that time, it's that companies like Luckin are the rule, not the exception.<p>Fake accounts, inflated metrics, bribery and graft are the norm. It's not even considered unethical, it's just the way business is done. If someone cheats you, then you can only blame yourself for being cheated. What's more, you should also blame yourself for not cheating them first.<p>A lot of Westerners fall into the same trap, thinking there's no way that anybody could be so blatant in lying, cheating and stealing, so they give their Chinese partners the benefit of the doubt.<p>Well, China certainly can be so brazen. Luckin literally inflated its quarterly sales figures by 88%, and it wouldn't surprise me if they did so just by fiddling with a spreadsheet. The fraud I encountered was rarely sophisticated.<p>It's also naive to think that auditors - even Western firms - provide any assurance at all. It requires a special type of stomach/spine to stand up to a client pressuring you or flooding you with information that is difficult to verify.