Newbee Allegedly Stole Over $100k of Players’ Prize Winnings

Chinese esports team Newbee has been accused of stealing $100,000 in prize money from its Fortnite players ‘XXM’ and ‘xMende who finished in 49th place at the Fortnite World Cup Duos Event in July 2019. The two players have not professionally competed in any Fortnite tournament after this event.

Accusations Against Newbee by Coach Rhidax

Fortnite coach, Rhidax who coaches Asian and European players revealed this on his Twitter account, calling out Newbee publicly.

Rhidax alleges that Newbee stole over $100,000 in prize winnings. He states that “Newbee trapped their players in contracts and stole all Fortnite prize money since WC, including 2 world cup qualifiers.” 

Following this Rhidax also posted screenshots of a conversation with WenQian (Another Newbee Fortnite player) stating that Newbee stole 10k from the player. 

He also added another screenshot of a conversation with a “trusted source” close to the players. In this, he asks whether the two players ever got the prize money to which the source replies with “No” and added that the organization “swallowed” it.

Rhidax also stated that he thought this was the biggest scam in Fortnite esports to date, stating that he would “be surprised if there’s an org that’s scammed more than this in Fortnite.”

Newbee’s Dota 2 Team Were Caught Match-Fixing Earlier in May 2020

Earlier in May 2020, Newbee was Blacklisted from Chinese Dota 2 competitions for match-fixing. Chinese Dota 2 organizations ImbaTV and Chinese Dota 2 Association (CDA) confirmed this on their social media handles and banned the Newbee organization and the 5 Dota 2 players who took part in match-fixing.

Hence Newbee is no longer a member of the CDA and is currently prohibited from playing in tournaments hosted by CDA and the Dota 2 Professional League (DPL). All 5 players who were playing in the team during the match-fixing incident will also be banned. The evidence that lead to these bans were also shared with Valve.

Following these allegations, Newbee made a statement on its social media page stating that they were never shown the proofs CDA claims to have. Moreover, they also stated that the players interviewed by CDA were intimidated during the interviews and tricked to make unfavorable statements against the club.

(Read | Newbee Claims that Their Players Were Coerced into Making Unfavourable Statements by the CDA)

CDA responded to it by denying Newbee’s allegations of coercion and stating that they’ve already submitted the proof of match-fixing to Valve and Perfect World. Neither Valve nor Perfect World has made a statement on this matter.

AFK Gaming has reached out to Newbee for comments on this matter, but has not received a response at the time of writing.