Gang of geriatric gangsters busted after reign of extortion, blackmail in Chinese city
- Gang ruled by fear in Yingtan, extorting money and forcing shops to sell them goods at discounted prices
- Members as old as 92 used their age and claims of ill health to obstruct police investigations
Extortion, blackmail and kidnapping are not usually associated with the activities of senior citizens, but one eastern Chinese city has busted a criminal gang for all those offences and the average age of the members is 79, according to domestic media reports.
The gang, with members aged between 68 and 92, committed a string of crimes since 2002 in the city of Yingtan, in Jiangxi province, according to a court report from the end of last year.
As many as 19 of the geriatric gangsters received jail sentences for crimes involving blackmail, brawling, threatening to attack government offices, and detaining people illegally, the court ruled.
Their kingpin, surnamed Liu and whose age was not released, was sentenced to 16 years in prison while 18 others received jail sentences of between one and 11½ years, Jiangxi provincial politics and justice committee said on social media app WeChat.
The ageing mafia operated under the name of Liu’s Family Elderly People’s Association because most of its members had that surname and the family is a big clan in the region, according to the committee – the government body that oversees court, police and other departments in each province.
“They are influential in all spheres, including economics, politics and people’s livelihoods,” the committee’s announcement said. “They are even more powerful than the local [Communist] Party committee or government. They perpetrated a ‘soft violence’. Local residents turn pale at the mention of Liu.”