Inspection teams reinforce crackdown across the country

By October, 10 national inspection teams headed by ministerial-level officials had visited 10 provinces and regions to ensure the smooth progress of an ongoing crackdown on gang-related crime.

On Jan 24 last year, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, launched a new round in the campaign against organized criminal gangs.

The teams, consisting of 335 members from various departments, including public security authorities, prosecutors and people's courts, stayed for a month in the 10 areas, which included Chongqing and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning, Fujian, Shandong and Henan.

By the end of the year, inspection teams will have visited every province, region and municipality, and will revisit some of the places at certain times, according to the office leading the crackdown on criminal gangs and organized crime.

The inspectors visited more than 800 villages in 99 cities, sent out more than 10,000 questionnaires to members of the public, and spoke with about 6,000 officials at all levels - provincial, city, county, township and village - to uncover problems.

During the inspections, the teams received more than 170,000 tipoffs and directly supervised the handling of about 6,600 key clues, according to the office.

In the areas visited by the teams, police cracked down on 96 mafiastyle organizations, and seized money and assets worth some 5 billion yuan ($740 million). About 1,300 suspects turned themselves in, according to the office.

Chen Yixin, secretary-general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, said the performance of local Party committees and governments during the campaign was one of the focuses of the inspection, and the results will be used when evaluating their work.

Ran Saiguang, a professor of law at the National Police University for Criminal Justice in Baoding, Hebei province, said the inspection teams' main objective was to make sure local governments were conducting the crackdown in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the central leadership.

The teams helped provincial government departments solve a number of difficult problems, he said, adding that the situations locally were often complex because some officials were possibly involved in illegal activities, so the presence of the teams could help push the crackdown forward.

Ran said the inspections helped bolster people's confidence in the fight against organized crime because the inspection visits and announcements detailing tipoff phone lines and email addresses made the public more willing to expose criminal gangs.