Crackdown on triad-style gangs Six men have been sentenced to death

Yang was accused of ordering his men to stab an entertainment boss without killing him. The man’s body was found soaked in blood with 15 knife wounds. Also given the death penalty was Liu Zhongyong, accused of ordering the fatal stabbing of a man he thought was singing too loudly in a karaoke bar. He admitted only to owning a coal mine, to illegal mining and to paying off the family of three workers killed in a shaft collapse. The court said: “This organisation illegally controlled the Yubei district . . . carried out illegal criminal activities against land and construction developers and coerced ordinary people. Their influence has been odious."
Six men have been sentenced to death in the first convictions in China’s most far-reaching crackdown on triad-style gangs under Communist rule. The extent of the sweep against underworld gangs in the sprawling southwestern metropolis of Chongqing highlights the close ties between triads and government officials who have been paid off for years to turn a blind eye to organised crime. Capitalist-style economic reforms have provided unprecedented opportunities for gangs to take advantage of loopholes in the system and to bribe officials on meagre state salaries. The first 31 suspects went on trial this month and were sentenced yesterday. Yang Tianqing, 35, the ringleader, was sentenced to death for mafia-style gang activities, murder, assault and extortion, along with five others. Three were given a two-year reprieve — the equivalent of a life sentence — but the other three face certain execution.
At the end of the hearing, Yang urged the court to retry the case because it was so complicated. He said that there was “someone bigger” who was responsible for the killing. Liu Zhongyong denied being a gang boss. Nobody called him that, he said, but simply addressed him by name Liu’s “foot soldiers” confessed to police that they had "chopped" a man for singing too loudly, but they reversed their confession yesterday, saying that Liu had not ordered the killing. More than 1,500 people have been arrested across Chongqing since the recently appointed party boss launched a campaign to try to eradicate gangs so widespread and complacent that they attacked their victims even in shopping areas in daylight. Among those arrested are three billionaires, 67 gang bosses, 50 officials, the former director of the municipality’s justice bureau, the former deputy police chief and more than 200 police officers. Bo Xilai, the Chongqing party boss and a member of the party’s powerful Politburo, last week made his first public statement since starting a sweep that has attracted nationwide attention. He said: “The public gathered outside the government office and held up pictures of bloodshed. These pictures made people nervous. The gangsters slashed people with knives just like butchers killing animals. It was an unbearable sight. The knives piled up like a mountain during the seizures last year, and they were not the usual daggers but long knives.”
Public attention has focused on Wen Qiang, the former justice bureau director, who was also in charge of the city’s prisons. Local media have reported that police were able to recover his hidden stash of cash only after they showed videos shot by gangsters of Mr Wen in bed with underage girls and his trysts with starlets.
They found 20 million yuan (£2 million) in notes hidden under a fishpond on a road out of the city. The notes had been so carefully packed that not a drop of water had got in. Some of the money is now on display in Chonqqing as a prize exhibit in a show about the crackdown on gangs. The once-defiant Mr Wen — who said that consorting with gangs was part of the job of a policeman in tracking down criminals — had finally cracked under interrogation when he learnt that his son had returned to China from the United States. It was not known if the son had been forced to come back. He is believed to own eight houses and to have assets of about 100 million yuan in kickbacks from crime bosses. His sister-in-law is already on trial for running up to 20 gambling dens in Chongqing hotels and for paying off the police to turn a blind eye to criminal activities that included illegal drug use. She drove a Mercedes Benz, kept several luxury villas and maintained a stable of 16 young men to provide her with sexual services, state media said.