An underground market for access to Anthropic's Claude has rapidly expanded in China, IANS reported on October 5, citing South Korea's Chosun Ilbo. Brokers resell account tokens to Chinese users — including scholars and engineers who prefer Claude over domestic models for code generation — even though the service is officially blocked in the country.

The trade relies on "token resellers" who set up servers overseas where Claude is permitted and register accounts in bulk using email addresses acquired through past cryptocurrency ventures. Tens of thousands of such entities are reported to exist nationwide, with as many as six of 30 companies in one Beijing office building in the Haidian district engaged in "AI access reselling."

As US platforms tighten controls, resellers are reportedly setting up shell companies in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the US to sign enterprise agreements with Anthropic or AWS. The Chosun report also notes concerns that illegally obtained accounts are used for distillation learning by Chinese firms — a charge Anthropic already leveled in March, when it accused three Chinese unicorns including DeepSeek of extracting Claude's capabilities through roughly 24,000 fraudulent accounts.