Jingmen Guo Hua: From street thugs to billionaires Deputy Director of the Public Security Bureau as a protective umbrella

[Minnan Net]

From a street thug to a well-known billionaire in Jingmen, Hubei Province, Guo Hua spent more than 10 years. However, his "traces" were obtained through illegal and criminal activities such as opening casinos, gambling, extortion, forced transactions, and usurious lending.

On February 8, 2018, after eight pre-trial conferences, the Jingshan People's Court publicly pronounced judgments in the first instance on the major mafia-related crime cases involving Guo Hua and 29 others. After the second-instance trial, Guo Hua was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and confiscated all his personal property.

The reporter also learned that Guo Hua's mafia-related gang has been able to occupy Jingmen for more than ten years and develop and grow, and behind it there is no shortage of "protective umbrellas" including Zou Ping, former deputy director of the Jingmen City Public Security Bureau.

A few days ago, a reporter from the Legal Evening News came to Jingmen City, Hubei Province, to restore the beginning and end of Guo Hua's case.

On February 8, 2018, the Jingshan People's Court publicly pronounced judgments in the first instance on the major mafia-related crime cases involving Guo Hua and 29 others.

Black boss Guo Hua was at the scene of the first-instance trial. Courtesy of Jingmen police

Fame: Solving the "Axe Gang" to Establish "Prestige"

Guo Hua, 44, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for intentional injury at the age of 17.

After his release from prison in June 2002, Guo Hua engaged in gambling activities for a long time, successively attracting acquaintances around him by inviting guests to dinner and giving benefit fees, and then "Guo Hua and his friends" gradually formed a mafia-type organization with gambling as the carrier, Guo Hua as the organizer, including his wife.

Guo Hua established his "prestige" by "setting the stage" (organizing personnel to fight). In October 2003, because Guo Hua's relatives and the local "Axe Gang" gang leader quarreled, the two sides agreed to "compare and compare".

Guo Hua led people to cut Wang Mou, a member of the "Axe Gang", into serious injuries and Kong mou into minor injuries. Wang Recalled that at that time, more than a dozen people on his side were scattered near a telephone booth, and then from the opposite side of the road rushed over several young men holding bent scythes, machetes, and mountain knives, "Before I could take out the bent scythe, I was cut down to the ground, and later I was hospitalized in the Second People's Hospital of Jingmen City for more than 20 days. The collapse of the "Axe Gang" made Guo Hua's gang "famous" in Jingmen City.

The court found that in order to maintain and develop the criminal syndicate and evil forces, Guo Hua and his wife were opened by Yang Mou for a long time, and gradually accumulated economic strength by drawing profits and arranging personnel to release codes. Since 2006, Guo Huawei has grown his power and has successively recruited a number of people who have completed their sentences and been released.

In September 2008, Guo Hua led people to attack the casino opened by Xie, and Xie was forced to compensate for the loss and promise to close the casino, thus establishing Guo Hua's strong position in the gambling industry. In order to further develop the organization, Guo Hua connived and encouraged his subordinates to open casinos for profit and feed their own subordinates, and in order to maintain the organizational structure and establish the authority of the organizers and leaders, the gang gradually formed unwritten rules and disciplines such as "to safeguard the reputation of the organization", "bosses at all levels must manage and take good care of the younger brother", "the younger brother must obey, and the things arranged by the boss must be done well", "fights must be won", "drug abuse is not allowed", "violations of rules will be punished" and other unwritten rules and disciplines.

After having "prestige", Guo Hua's gang began to think of more ways to make a lot of money. Since 2012, Guo Hua has injected funds into a real estate project under the name of a company, and in early May 2015, Guo Hua led dozens of people to surround the company on the grounds that the company's legal representative had not fulfilled the agreement to pay 20 million yuan by April 30 of that year. After the company's legal representative was stuck in the office for 5 hours, he was forced to agree to pay an additional 20 million yuan on the basis of the original settlement agreement before he could get out. The court found Guo Hua's gang guilty of forced trading.

Another source of interest for the Guo Hua gang is loan sharking. In early August 2016, members of Guo Hua's gang lent Tian 40,000 yuan at a daily interest rate of 800 yuan. Because Tian failed to pay interest on time, members of Guo Hua's gang began to "follow" Tian's debts. He first detained Tian for three days and four nights at a jingmen hotel from August 18 to 21, 2016, and then detained Tian for five days and four nights at a jingmen express hotel from September 3 to 7, 2016. The court identified a total of 10 such illegal detention crimes as guo hua's gang.

Investigation: The victim who is difficult to collect evidence bluntly says that "Guo Hua can't afford it"

In 2016, there were a number of group visits in Jingmen City caused by major cases of illegal absorption of public deposits, involving billions of dollars. After 3 months of secret investigation, the Jingmen police found that the "Guo Company" criminal and evil forces headed by Guo Hua had long been running amok in the central urban area of Jingmen, committing wrongdoing, bullying and maiming the masses, and seriously undermining the social and economic order of Jingmen.

On November 18, 2016, 141 police forces from the Jingmen police in Hubei Province quickly assembled to form the "11.18" special case team, which consisted of three special classes in Jingshan, Zhongxiang and Shayang. On the same day, the special case team successfully arrested Guo Hua and 6 key members of the organization.

"In the early investigation of Guo Hua's case, we were all in other places, and we couldn't tell our families, for fear that our families would be worried." The first police officers to enter the investigation were followed several times in the early stages of the case and received threatening and threatening phone calls.

"When I was drawn to the task force, the command center's telephone notice said that it was just going to the Jingshan County Bureau for a meeting." Gong Jun, a member of the Guo Hua case task force and deputy head of the organized crime investigation brigade of the criminal investigation detachment of the Jingshan City Public Security Bureau, told the Legal Evening News reporter that the policemen who were drawn from the municipal bureau to the Jingshan special case group did not expect that it would be more than a year after they were stationed.

"The Guo Hua gang has been entrenched in Jingmen for more than 10 years, deeply rooted, evidence collection is quite difficult, white + black, 5 + 2 is our real work portrayal." After extensive and in-depth investigation and visits, and verification of one clue after another, the people's police found that guo Hua's gang relied on the notoriety of its criminal organization, often picking quarrels and provoking trouble, interfering in disputes, and causing personal injuries to more than 20 people. When the police found these people, they said that Guo Hua could not afford to provoke and did not want to find trouble.

"In order to investigate the case thoroughly, we exhausted various methods to find witnesses. There was a victim who had taken refuge in the field, when we found the house he rented through various means, knocked on the door, and after the police card was revealed, the other party immediately closed the door, we have been doing work outside the door, and then through the phone call of the person concerned, it is difficult to get through, the other party promised to testify, but repeatedly told us, please do not record the real place where he is currently living in the record. ”

At the case-handling base of the special case group, the police repeatedly received whistleblowing letters from the masses that were posted in the corner of the wall in the middle of the night and thrown into the courtyard, reporting the behavior of Guo Hua and his gang.

With the continuous deepening of the investigation and the continuous clarification of the criminal facts, the special case team carried out arrests against the Guo Hua gang, and for those who fled the wind, the police went to Myanmar and more than ten provinces and cities across the country to handle cases and pursue, and 62 illegal suspects were arrested successively.

Under the guidance of the Ministry of Public Security and the Hubei Provincial Public Security Department, the Jingmen Public Security Department lasted more than a year, and the special case team continued to investigate the clues of the case, find out the facts of the gang crime one by one, find out that Guo Hua and 29 other people were suspected of organizing, leading, and participating in organized crime of a triad nature, and found out 52 illegal and criminal facts, and the other 33 people were handled in another case according to law.

Sentenced: The black boss was sentenced to 20 years in the case of Liu Han, who was sentenced to "learning from the scriptures" of the Public Prosecutor's Law

"After entering the investigation stage, the three jingshan public procuratorial law families went to Xianning, Hubei Province, to learn from Liu Han and Liu Wei's experience in handling triad-related cases." Fan Heping, president of the criminal division of the Jingshan Court, the presiding judge of the first instance trial in the Guo Hua case, told the Legal Evening News that in order to meet the requirements of the trial-centered reform of the criminal procedure system, promote the materialization of the trial, and adhere to the principle of evidence adjudication, the judges also went to the Wenzhou Intermediate Court to learn about its measures to promote the materialization of the trial.

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, mentioned Wenzhou's experience in the 2017 SPC work report: Zhejiang Wenzhou courts vigorously promoted investigators, evaluators, and witnesses to appear in court to testify, give full play to the role of lawyers in defense, and promote the substantiveization of trials.

Fan Heping said that in addition to the four defendants who explicitly refused to ask for a defense lawyer, the court appointed a legal aid lawyer to the defendant who did not hire a lawyer to protect their procedural rights. The court also asked the public prosecution to make the whole case evidence into ppt, and the court burned it into a CD-ROM and sent it to each defense lawyer.

Because of the fear of witnesses for fear of retaliation and other reasons, the court also specially set up a hidden witness appearance to testify in court, through voice changes, facial changes and other ways to protect witnesses.

The court found that Guo Hua's gang obtained tens of millions of yuan in economic benefits through illegal and criminal activities such as opening casinos, gambling, extortion, forced trading, and usurious lending, and then used them to organize the purchase of knives, vehicles, rent houses, settle the situation for the members of the organization, pay bribes to seek protection, invite members of the organization, organize collective tours, etc., to maintain the normal operation of the organization. The organization has committed more than 40 illegal crimes. Another 28 people, including Guo Hua's wife, were also sentenced to prison terms ranging from 1 to 16 years, and in early July 2018, all 29 defendants in Guo Hua's mafia-related case were imprisoned.

Playing the "umbrella": the deputy director of the public security bureau and 2 detachment leaders act as "protective umbrellas"

After Guo Hua and other triad-related personnel were sentenced in the first instance, the Hubei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection issued the fourth circular of this year -- "Circular on Three Typical Cases of Party Members and Cadres Involved in Triad-related Evils," which made the "protective umbrella" behind Guo Hua surface. The first official official in the official briefing was Zou Ping, former deputy director of the Jingmen City Public Security Bureau.

In 2010, Guo Hua was arrested by the Jingmen City Public Security Bureau's knife-throwing sub-bureau for gambling, and at the request of Guo Hua's wife Yang Yuqin, Zou Ping greeted the sub-bureau, and Guo Hua was released and returned home without punishment. In June 2015, zouping greeted the municipal traffic police detachment at Guo Hua's request to eliminate traffic violation records for Yang Yuqin's private car and not punish him; in October of the same year, Zou Ping helped Guo Hua's brother change from compulsory isolation to community drug rehabilitation. From 2005 to 2016, Zou Ping received a gratitude fee of 110,000 yuan and 50,000 US dollars from Guo Hua.

Zou Ping, the deputy director of public security, also invested in guo hua, the boss of the underworld: from 2009 to the first half of 2015, Zou Ping invested 3.7 million yuan in Guo Hua, from which he obtained a high interest rate of 2.3 million yuan. In addition to Deputy Director Zou Ping, even two detachment leaders, including criminal investigation and traffic police, also took care of guo Hua, the black boss.

The circular shows that in 2008, Luo Zhilin, the former head of the criminal investigation detachment of the Jingmen City Public Security Bureau, was entrusted by Guo Hua to greet Gao Mou, who was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment for committing intentional injury, and arranged for him to serve his sentence at the municipal detention center. In order to win and thank Luo Zhilin's care and support, Guo Hua gave him a total of 100,000 yuan in "thanks" from 2007 to 2016.

Similar to Deputy Director Zou Ping, from 2008 to 2015, Luo Zhilin invested 10.07 million yuan in Guo Hua to raise interest rates and made a profit of 4.05 million yuan.

Yang Yong, the former head of the traffic police detachment of the Jingmen Municipal Public Security Bureau, in May 2009, November 2011 and April 2016, provided assistance for Guo Hua and his wife to apply for vehicle license plates on three occasions, and accepted a total of 80,000 yuan in "thank-you fees" from Guo Hua.

On April 8, 2018, Zou Ping was sentenced to 2 years and 3 months in prison by the Jingmen City Duodao District People's Court.

Effect: There are no more slashing and beating on the streets of Jingmen

When the news came out that Guo Hua's mafia-type organization gang had been sentenced, the citizens of Jingmen applauded.

Liu Gang (pseudonym) is a salesman for an enterprise in Jingmen City, Hubei Province. When Guo Hua's gang was in full swing, he was addicted to the gang's casino and even participated in gambling during his business trip.

Losing the red eye, Liu Gang embezzled public funds. In order to fill the deficit, Liu Gang had to sell his family property. In a fit of anger, his wife divorced Liu Gang. After Guo Hua's gang was arrested, Liu Gang felt much more relaxed.

"Gambling, in fact, is also a kind of addiction, knowing that it cannot be done, but it cannot withstand their temptation." Only by stepping out of this quagmire can we live a normal life. Liu Gang said. One example from another. In April this year, Jingmen City launched a special campaign to crack down on gambling crimes and launched the most strictly prohibited gambling order in the history of Jingmen.

"To achieve the extinction of casinos, the eradication of gambling game machines, online gambling and underground lottery outcrops, public entertainment service venues to standardize the operation, guard the people's money bags." Dong Yuhua, vice mayor of Jingmen Municipal Government and director of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, requested.

Walking on the street, the Legal Evening News reporter randomly interviewed several taxi drivers, and their most obvious feeling was that since Guo Hua and others were arrested for more than a year, the streets of Jingmen had never seen any with knives slashing and beating.

"Before Jingmen launched the anti-gang crime eradication campaign, some members of the criminal syndicates and evil gangs and street thugs often fought and quarreled in the central urban areas, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, and Guo Hua and other criminal and evil organizations were smashed, which greatly deterred crime."

According to the data released by the Jingmen Municipal Public Security, in 2017, the number of criminal cases in Jingmen Decreased by 32.32% year-on-year; among them, the number of injury cases, "two robbery" cases, and extortion cases decreased by 27.3%, 14.3% and 14.3% respectively year-on-year. Criminal cases in the first quarter of 2018 decreased by 11% year-on-year.

The evaluation results of the Hubei Provincial Comprehensive Management Commission released in early 2018 show that in 2017, the sense of security of the people in Jingmen was 97.2%, the third in the province; the satisfaction of the masses with public security was 97.07%, the second in the province; and the satisfaction with fair law enforcement was 92.12%, and the fourth in the province. (Reporter Zhu Jianyong)