Liu Han, front, former chairman of mining conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong Group, stands trial at the Xianning Intermediate Peoples Court in Xianning city, central China’s Hubei province
A former mining tycoon who led a mafia-style crime gang that ran casinos and killed rivals has been executed along with four of the gang’s members, a court in central China said yesterday.
Liu Han had been chairman of energy conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong Group in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The company owns stakes in Australian and U.S. mines.
Prosecutors had painted a picture of Liu as running a vast criminal gang in the province with interests in mining, real estate and gambling. They said the group gunned down rivals, maintained fleets of several hundred cars, including Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris, and fostered ties to prosecutors and police with drug-fueled parties.
Police recovered three military-issue hand grenades, a half-dozen submachine guns, and firearms and knives from the gang, the official Xinhua News Agency previously reported.
Liu, his brother Liu Wei and three other men were executed at an unspecified time after their death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court, according to a statement by the Xianning Intermediate People’s Court in Hubei province.
The five men were convicted in May last year of organizing, leading or participating in a gang, as well as murder.
The court said it organized meetings between the five and their families before they were executed.
The trial of Liu was one of the most high-profile prosecutions in President Xi Jinping’s two-year anti-graft campaign designed to bolster his power and the reputation of the ruling Communist Party. Liu was one of the richest 500 people in China with a fortune of USD650 million, according to a wealth ranking published in September by the Shanghai-based Hurun Report.
He has also been tied in media reports to Zhou Bin, the son of China’s disgraced former security chief Zhou Yongkang. Liu paid Zhou Bin 12 million yuan ($1.92 million) for an Aba, Sichuan-based tourism company, more than double its worth, to maintain a relationship with him, the South China Morning Post reported, citing unidentified people. AP/Bloomberg
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