Chinese mafia godmother jailed in Chongqing
A court in Chongqing has sentenced the 'godmother' of a mafia gang to 18 years in prison after a trial that scandalised China with tales of sex and corruption.
Xie Caiping, 46, was found guilty of involvement in organised crime and of running a string of illegal casinos hidden in hotels, nightclubs and tea houses.
Mrs Xie, who was also fined 1.02 million yuan (£92,000) was one of the first gangsters to go on trial after a mammoth police operation in the central city of Chongqing that has captured nearly 5,000 suspected criminals.
The operation, which began in June, was aimed at breaking the grip of the city's mafia and uncovered a tangle of corruption reaching up to the very highest levels of Chongqing's Communist party. The deputy police commissioner and Wen Qiang, the head of the city's Justice bureau have both been arrested.
Mrs Xie was Mr Qiang's sister-in-law and was consequently shielded from the authorities for many years. The court heard that she had bribed police to turn a blind eye to her activities, and that her staff had even beaten up a police officer who tried to investigate her in August 2008.
Her brazenness earned a sharp rebuke from Bo Xilai, the governor of Chongqing, who remarked: "This kind of behaviour wouldn't have been tolerated even under the Qing dynasty!" She appeared in court alongside Luo Xuan, 29, her driver and allegedly her lover. According to theChongqing Daily newspaper, Mrs Xie spent hundreds of thousands of yuan buying Mr Luo a car and his own hairdressing business. Mr Luo said he had become romantically involved with Mrs Xie after meeting her at a hot pot restaurant in 2007. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.
According to Chinese Business, another newspaper, the investigators uncovered evidence that Mrs Xie had a "stable" of 16 young men as her lovers. The evidence was not produced in court, however.
So far, six people have been sentenced to death for being gangsters.
At the end of last week, Yang Tianqing, 35, was given a death sentence for his role in four murders. Other gangsters under arrest include Li Qiang, who controlled more than 100 bus lines in the city and Wang Tianlun, who oversaw more than 70 per cent of the city's pork products industry.
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