Chinese courts conclude over 10,000 organized crime cases

Chinese courts have concluded 10,859 cases of organized crime since the country launched a campaign to fight such offenses at the beginning of 2018, said a criminal report by China's top court released on Wednesday.

The report was submitted to a bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature, for review.

"We've strictly implemented the requirement against organized crimes forwarded by the central leadership, solving a series of cases involving high-profile gangs that were seriously influencing the public and complained of," Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, said when explaining the report to the legislators.

In Guangdong province in February last year, for example, Liu Yongtian, former Party secretary of Liucun village in Guangzhou, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes including intentional injury, bribery and blackmail.

In January 2018, China launched the crackdown against organized crimes to increase the public's sense of security. The three-year campaign targets corrupt officials who protect offenders from criminal gangs.

According to the report, courts at each level across the country have concluded 194,000 cases on bribery, corruption and malpractice since 2014. Meanwhile, some 14,000 people who offered bribes were also given criminal punishments.

Courts nationwide also increased efforts to solve pollution-related crimes in the past few years, solving 110,000 such cases and sentencing 143,000 defendants, the draft added.