CHINA: Runaway economic growth is leading to a resurgence in organised crime in China. A group of 34 suspected gangsters went on trial in Beijing this week on charges of bribery, assault, extortion, gambling and the possession and sale of firearms.
The trial has electrified a city fearful of the revival of long-dormant Triad-style secret societies. For hundreds of years, the saying in China was that "gangsters and police belong to the same family", but Mao Zedong's Communist Party forced the mobsters out.
A growing income gap has seen corruption creep into local government and legal experts believe there could be one million mobsters in China. Despite collusion with officials, most are local gangsters and none is yet led by a godfather in the style of the Triads.
The Hu brothers, Yadong (45) and Yafeng (44), started a business in the late 1990s illegally buying and selling scrap vehicles, the prosecution says. They expanded their operations in April 2004 to include an illegal sand quarry in the northeastern district of Shunyi, an area near Beijing's airport which is home to most of Beijing's new crop of luxury villa developments, where many expatriates and wealthy Chinese live.
The brothers soon recruited dozens of hatchet men and formed a well-organised gang, investigators say. According to the prosecution, Hu Yadong sent the heavies around to beat up a man in 1996 because he refused to use Hu's garage. Half of the man's right ear was cut off.
In classic style, the suspected mobsters even turned to politics. In June 2004, Hu tried to manipulate a village election by forcing villagers to vote for their candidate, prosecutors allege.
Then the brothers began to enlist the help of city authorities and allegedly put Chang Yousheng, director of a city inspection team in Shunyi, on the payroll. Dressed as city employees, they began to extort money from local refuse-collectors.
A police officer at the Shunyi jail and an interrogator with Shunyi Public Security Bureau, accepted bribes, prosecutors say, while in April 2004, another local police officer allegedly had dinner at a local restaurant with Hu Yadong - while Hu was supposedly in jail.
The three officers did not appear in court and authorities would not confirm what kind of punishment they would receive.
Du Hangwei, deputy head of the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, warned massive social and economic change in China has led to an increase in gang-related crime.
The ministry launched a crackdown on organised crime in February and over 1,000 gang-related crimes are under investigation. Thirty criminals have been convicted so far and received jail terms or the death penalty.