[
link to timesofindia.indiatimes.com]
Chinese cops wipe out 4,000 mafia gangs
24 Sep 2007, 0000 hrs IST,AGENCIES
BEIJING: Chinese police have cracked nearly 500 criminal cases and busted over 4,000 gangs since it launched a crackdown against mafia-style crimes in February 2006, the state media reported on Sunday. The police had so far referred 340 cases of alleged gang crimes for prosecution, a spokesman of the office for national campaign against organised crime said.
More than 4,000 criminal gangs were wiped out during the campaign, he said. Thanks to the crackdown, the number of serious crimes including homicide and robbery has dropped in the first half of this year, he was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
However, the spokesman noted that the one-year-strong campaign shows that criminal activities of mafia-like groups are in “the high occurrence period” in China and more efforts must be made to win the “protracted, complex and tough” struggle.
Some of the criminal gangs involve “protecting umbrellas” from government officials. The spokesman also highlighted the existence of these “umbrellas” and said they are a crucial part for cracking gang crimes.
In 2002, police in southern China warned that activities by mafia-style criminal gangs were widespread. The police chief of the Guangdong province Liang Guoju told the local legislature that out of some eight-thousand criminal gangs broken up over a five-month period this year, more than two-hundred had mafia-type structures.
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