Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba lost billions of dollars after authorities detained a person who shares the surname of the company's founder Jack Ma.

The reports about the detainment of this individual surnamed "Ma," led to Alibaba losing USD26 billion of its market value.

The man was detained from the city of Hangzou, where Alibaba is based out of. This led to confusion and the company's Hong Kong-listed shares plummeted by 9.4% within minutes of the reports appearing in the media, wrote The Independent.

He was detained on national security grounds and for allegedly "colluding with overseas anti-China hostile forces." The confusion created by the media reports forced The Global Times' former Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin to issue a clarification about the same.

He took to Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese social media platform, and said that the detained man was a random person and not Alibaba's Jack Ma.

The police also issued a statement later and stated that the man in question works in the information technology sector and is 20 years younger than Jack Ma. The clarifications helped the firm recover some of the losses by the end of the day.

Alibaba has been at the receiving end of the Chinese government's wrath after billionaire co-founder Jack Ma publicly criticised Chinese regulators for reining in a push into online lending, wealth management and insurance products by the firm's online payments arm Ant Group.

A planned record-shattering $35 billion Hong Kong-Shanghai IPO by Ant Group, which would have added to Ma's already massive wealth, was also abruptly shelved. Ma subsequently disappeared from public view for weeks, and Ant Group was ordered by regulators to return to its roots as an online payment services provider.

The government crackdown has weighed on Alibaba shares, as well as those of other major Chinese tech players with fears swirling that they might also face further fines and restrictions.

Jack Ma
Jack Ma had virtually disappeared from the public eye. Photo: AFP / Fabrice COFFRINI
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