Posted on 01/26/2005 9:15:39 AM PST by jb6
BEIJING (AFP) - An entertainment and property tycoon in southeast China has been sentenced to death for running a prostitution and gambling ring in a case that exposes the close ties between organized crime and officialdom.
AFP Photo
Chen Kai, who also sought a political career, was sentenced over the weekend at a court in Fuzhou, the city where he committed his crimes and bribed 50 officials to look the other way, Monday's China Daily reported.
He was found to be the head of a 21-member gang that ran thinly disguised casinos and brothels catering to newly-rich customers.
In what is considered the biggest-ever case of collusion between gangsters and officials in Fuzhou, Chen eventually paid a total of one million dollars to 50 different officials to protect his racket, the newspaper said.
Reflecting the highly sensitive nature of the case, court officials in Fuzhou refused comment.
"There's a special task force in charge of the case," an official at the higher people's court in Fuzhou told AFP. "No one else is aware of the details."
Chen, in his early 40s, was a former small merchant who climbed the social ladder rapidly during the late 1990s and was said to be the richest man in Fuzhou by the time of his arrest in 2003.
He built a night club, KG Music Plaza, which at more than 20,000 square meters (222,000 square feet) was reputed to be the biggest in east China.
When stars were entertaining there, limousines with license plates identifying them as belonging to either the government or the police would be lined up outside, an unidentified source told eastday.com website.
In 1998 Chen was made a member of Fuzhou city's political consultative conference, an advisory body of mostly non-Communist leaders in society.
However, reports in the local media suggested that Chen, an expert in using personal connections, simply wanted the position for easier access to the city's bigwigs.
"While he was a member he usually didn't attend," a member of the assembly told the Business Post newspaper in an earlier report. "Neither have I heard of him raising any issues at the conference."
Previous reports indicated that Chen had also been involved in laundering drug money for an organization known as "125," the alias of its leading member, Hong Kong resident Kin-cheung Wong, the eastday.com website said.
Wong was sentenced to death in Fuzhou last month for running a drug trafficking network which extended from Myanmar and which used Fuzhou to transfer drugs to North America, the China News Service said.
The China Daily did not say if any of the 50 officials involved in the case had been punished.
Officials previously described as having taken bribes from Chen allegedly include Song Licheng, the deputy Communist Party secretary of Fuzhou, and Zhi Dujiang, the deputy head of police in Fujian province.
China's odd mixture of market and planned economy provides openings for entrepreneurial businessmen to use illicit means to make fast money. But usually they need to bribe officials to ensure their cooperation.
The country's size makes it difficult for the central government to monitor everything that goes on in the provinces.
The idea of corrupt officials enriching themselves is a source of intense discontent among the Chinese public, many of whom struggle to make ends meet on meager salaries or pensions.
Just please tell me that the usage of the word "ring" in no way has anything to do with a "circle"!!! LOL
Pimping ain't easy in China!!
Pimps get death in China, drug traffickers are hanged in Iran...
The Communists always had this bizarrely puritanical streak on them. I read Alphonse Bodar's book about the War in Indochina, and he quoted many Chinese and Vietnamians saying that (in the 1946-1954 era) they knew the Reds would close down the whole entertainment industry.
That would at least get him a senate seat from the rats.
We need to send them Snoopdog, teach em the right way.
"The China Daily did not say if any of the 50 officials involved in the case had been punished."
Let's wait and see if there is followup on the real culprits here - Officials enriching themselves by allowing the convicted criminal to exist in the first place. It would seem these officials are as guilty as the Death Row dweller, acting as co-conspirators with him.
One of my friends does business there. Spitting a chewing gum in the street on in the subway station gets you a 500 dollars fine. I would really like this one tried in Paris ! LOl
We need to get Slick Willie to run for office in China. That is one way to get rid of him!!
Yeah, I found Paris pretty dirty too. German cities were clean, just the pissing of drunks behind every bush and in every side street. London was rather dirty too. But not like NYC, which to me always stinks of urine.
Like every good provincial, I absolutely loathe Paris. Too big, too many people, increasingly too foreign, and really too neglected. What strikes me most is that the Parisians have grown really aggressive, talking to someone up there is akin to invading his private space.
But there are really incredible palces to visit there, I must admit.
It would be beautiful if they'd clean it up and ship out the islamics. I loved the Lieuve (?sp).
You mean, the Louvre museum ? Yes, it's a gem. Such treasures - and like in every musem, so many that lie in the museum's cellars !
I thought prostitution was legal in China. Happy endings, message houses and such.
I have a theory that a culture of government corruption is the main cause of poverty in the world. If Chinese people don't want to put up with corruption, I think that's a good sign that they'll have a prosperous future.
and he gets to donate his organs as restitution.
Thou shalt not shed light on the ruling classes! Death, peasant!
Lotsa Freepers would probably support those same rules here. Drugs are bad, m'kay?
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