Kanghua Ren, a youtuber from Spain has to shut down his YouTube channel for 5 years due to his prank on homeless man (image via: The New York Times)

Barcelona Court punishes a youtuber for prank on homeless man

Kanghua Ren, known as ReSet, a youtuber from Spain has to shut down his YouTube channel for 5 years after the Barcelona Court found him guilty against moral for prank on his victim in 2017. The YouTube prankster also has to pay €20,000 (£17,700) as compensation for the victim. 

The Court decided to stop his activities on YouTube – included ordered him to not post any videos to his channel until 2024. 

The 21-year-old vlogger also has been given a 15-month prison sentence by the Court due to his guilty. However, custodial statement in Spanish law says under two years for first-time offenders in nonviolent crimes to be suspended, according to The New York Times. 

The case began in 2017 when one of his 1,2 millions followers challenged him a prank to replace the whipped cream inside Oreo cookies with toothpaste. Later, Ren went outside and gave the cookies to homeless man, along with a €20 cash. The man vomited after being tricked to eat the toothpaste-filled biscuits. 

In the original video, Ren admitted that he may have gone a little too far, but added that he was helping the man to clean his teeth since the man was poor. 

“I don’t think he’s brushed them since he became poor,” the YouTuber said.

The Spanish media reported the homeless man was Gheorge L, a 52-year-old  immigrant from Romania who worked as a shepherd before moving to Barcelona. The man confessed he never been treated so poorly while living on the street before meeting the prankster. 

After the video became viral and gained a lot of critics from people, the vlogger went to find the man and gave his daughter €300 note for not filing a lawsuit.

Rosa Aragonésthe judge said the prank was not an "isolated case”and the video showed “cruel behaviors” to violate other easy victims.