Guangdong police target extortion gangs

Police in Guandong province have witnessed an increase recently in the number of criminal gangs using threats of violence to extort money from their victims.

Qian Bo, deputy director of the Guandong public security department’s criminal investigation bureau, said police had busted a number of such gangs as part of an operation, code-named Jufeng 4, which took place between March 17 and 28.

“In previous years, gangsters would use knives to cut debtors’ hands, feet, ears or other part of their bodies, but now they are employing different methods,” he said, at a news conference in Guangzhou on Thursday.

“We have seen debtors bombarded with threatening calls and messages and their doors splashed with red paint.”

Many of the victims of this kind of intimidation are in debt to loan sharks, who they borrowed money from to gamble at casinos in Macao, according to Qian.

Fellow deputy director of the bureau, Xie Xubiao, said one gang suspected of threatening debtors in the city’s rural Panyu district had been broken up as part of an operation launched on March 28, which involved 300 officers and resulted in the detention of 55 suspects.

The detainees included two suspected gang heads, surnamed He and Lu.

Police seized three replica guns, 10 gambling machines and a plethora of knives, accounting books and drugs during the operation, Xie said.

In addition to debt collecting, the gang is also suspected of fraud, running illegal casinos and weapons smuggling.

Meanwhile, police in Huizhou detained 83 suspected members of two criminal gangs during Jufeng 4, who are accused of similar crimes to the gang in Panyu.

Since the beginning of the year, Guangdong police have detained more than 7,620 suspects and broken up 350 criminal gangs.