• Los Angeles Times, Monday, February 21, 2011 1:08 PM

Alibaba.com, China's biggest e-commerce site, said Monday that its two most senior executives were stepping down after an internal investigation found more than 2,000 fraudulent virtual storefronts had been set up with the help of company salespeople. In a statement, Alibaba.com said Chief Executive David Wei and Chief Operating Officer Elvis Lee were not involved in the scams but wanted to shoulder responsibility for the "systemic break-down" in Alibaba.com's "culture of integrity," The Los Angeles Times reports.

Wei is being replaced by Jonathan Lu, chief executive of sister company Taobao.com. Alibaba Group is about 40% owned by Yahoo. As The Times point, the company said it began noticing a surge in fraud claims in late 2009 and launched a probe. "Findings showed that about 100 members of the company's 5,000-member sales staff helped fraudsters evade steps to authenticate their businesses so they could pretend to sell electronic goods at attractive terms and prices."

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