90,171 punished for helping shield gangs

More than 90,000 people involved in sheltering organized crime gangs, including more than 5,000 officials above county-level, were punished by the end of October, recent figures showed.

According to the national office against organized crime, since the beginning of the campaign in 2018, discipline inspection and supervisory authorities across the country have dealt with 76,627 cases involving 90,171 people. Among them, 315 were officials at the departmental level and 4,913 were at the county-level.

According to the office's data, 3,463 mafia-style gangs were cracked down on over the past three years, and 2,869 of them－about 83 percent－were found to have been sheltered by officials.

A mafia-style gang led by Yi Lianfeng in Tongliao city, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, was suspected of committing multiple crimes including operating casinos, organizing prostitution and forcing trading for years. Local public security organs attempted to investigate the gang several times but made no progress due to obstruction from the gang's "protective umbrellas", the office said.

The gang wasn't busted until Fu Tiegang, former Party secretary of Tongliao, and other involved officials were investigated and punished in October last year for serving as a protective umbrella. In June, 54 gang members received prison terms ranging from nine months to 22 years.

Yan Jianguo, deputy to the National People's Congress and chief partner of a Beijing-based law firm, was quoted by Xinhua News Agency as saying that the timely trials of landmark cases not only punished criminals and the officials sheltering them, but also had a positive effect on society.

"The public was satisfied with the outcome," Yan told Xinhua during this year's NPC plenary session in May, adding that there should be arrangements to establish and improve relevant mechanisms and keep the campaign going.

The office said that while investigating organized crimes, investigators have also been urged to hold relevant Party committees and government regulatory departments accountable. In the past three years, public security organs across the country have transferred 71,494 pieces of evidence related to organized crime, corruption and protective umbrellas to disciplinary inspection and supervisory organs.

Additionally, political and legal organs at all levels have worked to investigate protective umbrellas inside the judicial field. By October, a total of 34,907 people in that field had been investigated for their involvement in organized crimes, corruption and sheltering gangs, accounting for 38.7 percent of the total.

From July to October, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee launched a national pilot rectification program covering five cities, four counties and two prisons. Some habitual irregularities in law enforcement and judicial practices and deep-rooted problems in trial obstruction and legal supervision have been rectified.