CHINA:Yang Shukuan, a Chinese official who liked to cruise around the town of Tangshan in an armoured personnel vehicle and who faces charges of running China's biggest organised crime ring, has been expelled from his post after police arrested him for extortion and weapons offences.
Yang (39) was expelled from Tangshan city's Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference this month, three months after he was arrested on charges of extortion and illegal possession of firearms, the People's Daily reported.
Yang's gang, composed of 40 ex-convicts, was armed with heavy weapons and allegedly extorted 800 million yuan (€80 million) worth of guns and property from local businessmen, making it the biggest firearms case since the Communists came to power in 1949.
His rise to power was helped by the corrupt head of the public security bureau of Tangshan City, who offered support as well as weapons to the alleged gang leader.
Yang bribed the officer with an undisclosed amount of money and an Audi A8, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
A senior executive of a state-owned company in Tangshan was forced to invest 200 million yuan (€20 million) in Yang's company, it said.
The story comes amid heavy criticism of local officials in northern and central China over the exploitation of slave labourers, many of them children, in brickworks and foundries.
No one could stand in the way of the gang, say media reports. On one occasion when Yang's armoured cortege was stopped by two police officers for driving around the city, the officers were so badly beaten they were in hospital for weeks.
Yang was arrested in possession of 38 firearms, 12 tear gas canisters which are used by police, 10,000 rounds of ammunition and three cars with military licence plates, the reports said.
He was accused of forcing the owner of an iron ore mine in Qianxi county to sign documents to turn over ownership of the property at an extremely low price by firing gunshots into the ceiling.
Police said Yang hired an assassin to kill a property developer who had tried to retrieve an investment of 70 million yuan (€7 million).
The gun-for-hire turned himself in to police and disclosed the plot, it was reported.