The Worst of the Worst: China's Most Infamous Criminals

The Worst of the Worst: China's Most Infamous Criminals
Apr 27, 2010 By Brandon King , eChinacities.com

By now, you have probably read about China’s mobile execution van, a van designed to execute criminals on the go through a series of lethal injections. Credit whoever designed this ‘death van’ for doing what many thought impossible – making panel vans even creepier than they already were. What sort of unsavory characters might have the misfortune of finding themselves in one of these converted 17-seaters? Below is a list of some of the most notorious criminals in Chinese history, ranging from pirates to white-collar executives to foreign drug smugglers.

Ma jiajue china’s worst criminals
Ma Jiajue

The most notorious pirate in Chinese history couldn’t grow a ‘black beard’ even if she wanted to, because China’s most infamous swashbuckler was a woman. A former prostitute, Cheng I Sao (1785-1844) married a Chinese pirate captain on the condition that she would share equally in his wealth and power. When Cheng’s husband died six years later, she took command of his fleet and was soon sailing the seas with impunity. A shrewd businesswoman, Cheng diversified from the traditional pirate activity of looting into, according to CNN, “protection schemes, blackmail, and distortion.” Cheng was downright ruthless at times, administering punishments to her crew that ranged from dismemberment to death. While she was pursued by Chinese authorities, Cheng managed to negotiate amnesty in exchange for peace. She died in 1844 at the age of 69, making her perhaps the only pirate grandmother in history.

I’m going with an entire organization rather than just an individual for this one. The triads are a collection of crime organizations that have existed in China since the middle of the 18th century and have since spread to other parts of the world with large populations of Chinese. The triads make their living in typical Mafioso manner, through activities like extortion, drug peddling, and in more recent times, car theft and trade in counterfeit electronics. The Communist Party’s ascendancy to power in 1949 pushed most of the triads south to the then British colony Hong Kong, where they continue illicit activities to this day, albeit in smaller numbers. A complex organizational structure makes it hard to get a finger on exactly how many exist today, but there is a good chance that some of those DVDs on your shelf passed through the hands of someone affiliated with the triads at some time.

In 2005, Hong Kong’s Chan Nai-Ming had the dubious honor of becoming the first person in the world convicted of illegal mass distribution of copyrighted works using a peer-to-peer network. Chan, a 38-year-old, unemployed male, was charged with three counts of attempting to distribute copyrighted works. The copyrighted works in question were Red Planet, Daredevil, and Miss Congeniality, and sources have speculated that Gigli was next on Chan Nai-Ming’s list of terrible movies to seed. After an appeal, Chan’s original sentence of three months in a Hong Kong jail was upheld.

As the worldwide financial crisis has focused the world’s attention on corporate crime, a number of high ranking executives have been exposed for engaging in illicit activities. Among them is former Morgan Stanley managing director Du Jun, who was found guilty in Hong Kong’s biggest ever insider trading case and sentenced to seven years in prison and a three million USD fine in September 2009. Du advised state-owned CITIC Resources regarding the purchase of a Kazakh oil field, and purchased CITIC shares at least nine times in return. In all, Jun obtained a profit of 4.3 million USD before being convicted of nine counts of insider trading.

The most infamous Chinese criminal of recent memory, Ma Jiajue was once a withdrawn but talented student studying biochemistry at Yunnan University. In May of 2004, following an all night poker game in which he claimed to have been repeatedly called a thief and taunted by being told he was too poor to afford shoes, Ma purchased a sledgehammer and bludgeoned four of his classmates to death. After fleeing to Hainan Island, Ma was apprehended by authorities and executed in June of 2007. This gruesome case garnered tons of attention, and sparked a nationwide debate about the growing income gap between rich and poor Chinese.

Late last year, China executed the first European national in 50 years when it administered a lethal injection to Briton Akmal Shaikh. Shaikh had been convicted of carrying 4 kilograms of heroin at the Urumqi Airport in Xinjiang Province in September of 2007. Chinese authorities proceeded with the execution despite pleas for clemency from Shaikh’s family and the British government, who argued that Shaikh suffered from bipolar disorder and had been tricked into smuggling the drugs with promises of becoming a pop star.

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