Triad crime gangs have ‘infiltrated government of resource-rich Shanxi’
Collusion with officials and police is like something out of a Hong Kong crime thriller, according to business magazine
Organised crime has infiltrated government agencies to collude with corrupt officials in the coal-rich province of Shanxi, one of the main targets of the central government’s extensive anti-corruption drive, according to the respected business magazine, Caijing.
A lengthy report documented how triad societies has boomed in the province in recent decades with the help of corrupt officials. And it explained how investigations into 14 major triad crimes in the province since 2006 had gone nowhere as triad members infiltrated government agencies and the police to frustrate investigations and collection of evidence.
The growing triad presence in the province also helped explain why the three last party bosses and police chiefs in the capital Taiyuan had been arrested on corruption charges and other disciplinary wrongdoings.
The newly appointed Shanxi party chief Wang Rulin said the crackdowns on organised crime and official corruption, and the campaign to improve governance, were the three main agenda items for the province. But the move to eradicate triads was the priority.
The Caijing report comes a week after a leading official said the party’s disciplinary watchdog would widen its crackdown on massive graft in the province.
“Party committees should be held accountable for the mass occurrence of corruption cases in Shanxi province,” Huang Shuxian, vice-secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) told a press briefing last week.
The CCDI recently announced that Ling Jihua, a Shanxi native and top aide to former president Hu Jintao, was being investigated for graft. Ling was widely seen as the head of the “Shanxi clique” of officials and businessmen who are natives of the province and are believed to profited enormously from its vast energy resources. At least eight top party officials from the province have been detained in corruption investigations in the past year, including Ling Zhengce, a brother of Ling Jihua.
The Caijing report described how organised criminals in Shanxi operated like the triad gang in the Hong Kong thriller, Infernal Affairs. The 2002 production, starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung, featured triad members who infiltrated police and foiled operations against them.