Beijing courts convict over 590 for organized crime

Beijing courts convicted 592 people for their involvement in 130 organized crime cases from January last year to the end of October, a Beijing High People's Court official said at a news conference on Nov 7.

A total of 83 people were sentenced to more than five years' prison with some receiving maximum sentences of 25 years. Property worth about 270 million yuan ($38.5 million) was recovered, confiscated or returned to victims.

Lan Xiangdong, vice-president of Beijing High People's Court, said gang-related crimes were often found in "key and emerging industries" like automobile sales, e-commerce, housing rentals, private financing and peer-to-peer platforms.

"The perpetrators have developed more covert means as more 'soft violence' was found in many cases, including threatening and intentionally making trouble," Lan said, adding they made up 70 percent of all concluded cases.

The Communist Party of China Central Committee, in conjunction with the State Council, launched a three-year campaign in January last year to crack down on organized crime.

Lan said to ensure the progress of the campaign, courts in Beijing will further strengthen teams working on criminal case trials and increase their professionalism.

"We have opened many training sessions for staff and we have published the manual on how to deal with organized crime. Now we have set up 40 teams and 33 well-trained judges to deal with such crimes," said Lan.