Tania Branigan in Beijing
Tuesday 3 November 2009 18.30 GMT Last modified on Saturday 9 January 2016
China Underworld Godmother
A string of gambling dens; a young lover lavished with gifts; brutal tactics that included the beating of an undercover cop investigating the powerful crime syndicate. Xie Caiping had all the hallmarks of a typical gang boss – with one big difference: she was a woman.
The "godmother of the underworld" has been jailed for 18 years, the state news agency Xinhua reported today – the latest in a string of criminals caught in a crackdown in the south-western city of Chongqing.
While the trials in general have grabbed attention, residents have been agog at details of 46-year-old Xie's case, with several expressing amazement that a woman could head a "black society". Lurid reports in local media have included claims that she kept 16 lovers. Police say she had just one, a 26-year-old said to resemble a popular actor. Luo Xuan reportedly accepted gifts including a house but blamed Xie when he stood trial alongside her. He was sentenced to four and a half years.
Xie is the sister-in-law of Wen Qiang, for many years the city's deputy police chief and then director of its justice bureau, until his detention in August. He has been accused of sheltering gangs and will stand trial shortly on a string of charges.
On one occasion, the Southern Weekend newspaper reported, Xie left town with a suitcase stuffed with cash when Wen warned that a police raid was planned. On another, her gang members beat an undercover officer unconscious, dumping him in the countryside.
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Such was her confidence that one gambling hall was in a hotel opposite the Chongqing high court and next to the municipal prosecutor's office. Caijing magazine reported that at one of her dens the minimum stake was 20,000 yuan (£1,795) and the court said the gang had netted more than 2m yuan in profits. It fined Xie just over 1m yuan.
Xie was convicted of organising and leading a criminal syndicate, running gambling dens, illegal imprisonment, harbouring people taking illegal drugs and giving bribes to officials, said Xinhua.
Living up to the stereotype of the hardbitten gangster, she swore in court, to the displeasure of the judge. One associate described her as "good at debating and drinking, and very helpful to friends".
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Twenty others were sentenced to between one and 13 years in prison, according to the court's website. They included two police officers convicted of taking bribes to shelter Xie's gang.
"This kind of behaviour wouldn't have been tolerated even under the Qing dynasty [China's last, weak, imperial dynasty]," said Bo Xilai, the party secretary of Chongqing, who has headed the anti-crime drive.
Some think the politburo member hopes the high-profile campaign will help to elevate him in the runup to 2012, when the transition of power to China's next generation of leaders is due to take place.
Chen Yanling, a Chongqing resident who said she suffered at the hands of gangsters and corrupt police, said she and other victims waiting outside court were angered by Xie's sentence. "We didn't believe our ears when we first heard it's just 18 years. How many crimes has she committed?" Chen told Associated Press.
Last month the Chongqing courts sentenced six gangsters to death for murder, machete attacks and price fixing. Senior police and officials and powerful businesspeople were among the 1,500 people detained in the huge crackdown.
But the case has underlined the extent to which crime is entrenched in modern China and corrupt officials have co-operated with criminals.
"The facts prove that after the last round of crackdowns [in Chongqing in 2000], triad-related activities are still going strong, and there are still police protecting them," Chen Zhonglin, dean of the law school at Chongqing University, told Caijing.
Additional research by Cui Zheng
Caught in the crackdown
Pledges to tackle gangs are nothing new. But Chongqing's crackdown has netted an array of suspects, including 14 high-ranking officials plus influential business people and police officers.
Wen Qiang, a former deputy police chief, is reported to have bought a 30m yuan (£2.68m) villa with the bribes he obtained for sheltering criminals.
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Among the most notorious of those sentenced to death is the gang leader Liu Zhongyong (pictured). His offences included stabbing a man to death in March 2008 in a row that began when Liu complained the victim was singing karaoke too loudly. Liu owned a coal mine and, according to agencies in China, used mobsters to force other colliery owners to sell him cheap coal.
Professor Ming Xia of the City University of New York, who studies China's criminal underworld, told Associated Press that an internal police ministry report estimated up to three million people were involved in organised crime in 2004. He said the true figure might be higher, adding that local governments had "essentially lost control" over such activity.
The problem is partly of their own making, he said: corrupt officials not only shelter and benefit from crime, but use hired thugs to enforce decisions. Tania Branigan
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