Over the past few decades, China has seen phenomenal growth in the construction sector, with countless high-rise buildings rising from the ground and rapidly evolving from an agrarian country to a modern one.
This development process has also led to a large development of the market for construction raw materials, especially river sand, which is indispensable for construction, and has become a very profitable business.
In Shatang Village, Longtang Town, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, the Chen brothers used illegal means to control the village's grassroots organizations and served as village cadres for a long time.
Faced with the huge profits of river sand mining, they ignored the law and frantically stole river sand from the Beijiang River. They can earn millions of dollars in one night, and their greed has made the otherwise clear Beijiang River muddy.
However, the sanction of the law will eventually come, and the anti-crime operation of ** will make them pay the price they deserve. We have protected the mother river of Qingyuan, and given the people of Shatang Village a bright future, so that justice can once again triumph over greed.
Dashatang Village, a quiet small village in Longtang Town, Qingcheng District, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, the surname Chen is the big family in the village, and the brothers Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin stand out in this family.
Their eldest brother, Chen Zhijun, served as the secretary of the village party branch in his early years, and by the nineties of the last century, the brothers began to be eager to try for the position of village chief. At that time, the economy of the village was booming, and the position of village chief meant that he could control the collective resources of the village.
And the brothers gradually consolidated their position in this position.
After serving as the village chief, the evil deeds of the Chen brothers became more serious. They used various illegal means to control the villagers' groups and village committees in an attempt to consolidate their rule in Dashatang Village.
To achieve this, they set up a criminal gang to impose repressive rule on the villagers. They may even pose a threat to the personal safety of those who disagree with them.
In addition, they also bribed the staff of the first class, so that these staff members colluded with them and controlled the operation of the village grassroots organization all year round. ** preferential policies are often distorted by the villagers before they are passed on to them, so that they can obtain huge benefits from them.
In Dashatang Village, a criminal gang formed by brothers Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin controlled the village's grassroots organizations for more than 20 years. During this period, although some villagers reported them to the higher authorities, the Chen brothers, who learned of the news, used their clan power to drive the whistleblowers out of the village and forbade them to enter the ancestral hall to worship.
In addition, they also had the audacity to interfere with the appointment of the village party secretary by their superiors in an attempt to turn Dashatang Village into the private territory of the Chen family. As their interests increased, they began to target the lucrative business of river sand harvesting.
In the late 90s of the last century, the real estate market in Guangdong cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen entered a boom period, and the demand for materials needed for construction such as concrete and stone increased sharply.
However, river sand is highly sought after as a high-quality building material. As one of the important rivers in Guangdong Province, the Beijiang River is rich in high-quality river sand resources on both sides and at the bottom of the river.
The prosperity of Guangdong's real estate market has also made the Beijiang River sand sharp, at first only 5 yuan per cubic meter, and just a few years later, the purchase price was coaxed to 230 yuan to 280 yuan, dozens of times.
Since the mining of river sand requires only basic boats and manpower, and almost no other costs, it has become a "profitable" business. This huge profit** has led people to frantically mine river sand, so river sand is nicknamed "sand**".
In order to seize the huge interests of Beijiang river sand, Chen Zhihui and others used their gang power to enter this industry. River sand is a valuable resource of the country, and to be mined, it must be qualified for mining and sales through public bidding, but the Chen brothers were unwilling to abide by the laws and regulations, and they secretly took care of them by bribing and co-opting staff with the authority to manage river sand mining, and became shareholders or set up a number of companies with mining qualifications, and also colluded to squeeze out other qualified companies in the bidding process, and finally succeeded in monopolizing the river sand mining rights in the Qingyuan section of the Beijiang River.
After the Chen brothers obtained the mining rights, the river sand management company behind them ignored the mining regulations and carried out frenzied mining in Bac Giang day and night. To cover up the operation, sand mining vessels often operate at night and have customers arriving from cities such as Guangzhou buy river sand on-site and transport it away immediately.
On the Beijiang River, a sand mining ship can earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a night, and multiple ships can earn millions of yuan a night when operating at the same time. This illegal exploitation has caused serious damage to the ecological environment.
Excessive sand mining in the river will lead to serious undercutting of the riverbed, forming dangerous embankments and dangerous sections, affecting the flood control and drainage of the river, and may also lead to local flooding and overflow.
In the Qingyuan section of the Beijiang Basin, the Chen brothers have been unscrupulously mining river sand for more than a decade, resulting in deep riverbeds, exposed bridge foundations, and even bridge collapses, and at the same time, the sand pits formed by illegal river sand mining have also become a potential risk factor for drowning incidents.
In order to monopolize this rich resource, the Chen brothers not only did not know how to restrain themselves, but also let their gang members patrol the banks of the Beijiang River with knives and sticks, pretending to be law enforcement officers to stop the mining operations of other sand mining vessels, driving away, beating and intimidating other poachers, cracking down on competitors, and making their company the only miners in this river basin.
According to statistics, in the more than 10 years since Chen Zhihui's gang obtained the right to mine river sand, they illegally made a profit of about 1 billion yuan by illegally mining river sand in the 70-kilometer-long section of the Qingyuan section of the Beijiang River.
Why has such a frenzied poaching campaign not been stopped by law enforcement and regulatory authorities? Behind this is inseparable from the two black sheep of the Qingyuan Water Conservancy Bureau.
In the supervision of river sand mining in the Qingyuan section of the Beijiang Basin, the Water Administration Supervision Detachment of the Qingyuan Water Conservancy Bureau played an important role. However, the two former captains of the detachment, Li Yaobin and Yin Dongqing, were corrupted and co-opted by Chen Zhihui's gangs and became the umbrella for illegally stealing river sand.
After Li Yaobin took office, he couldn't help but feel envious and unbalanced in the face of the wealth and arrogance of the boss of Hesha, which happened to be used by Chen Zhihui. Chen Zhihui did what he liked, prepared fine wine for him, arranged to play mahjong, and even spent a lot of money to serve him, which eventually made Li Yaobin his tool and complied with him.
Li Yaobin's greed made him unable to resist Chen Zhihui's red envelope**, and in the end he became "no matter how much, you have to collect money; No matter how big or small, you have to do things".
And Chen Zhihui's generosity to Li Yaobin is also intimidating, once at a dinner, he saw that Li Yaobin's TV at home was a little old, and without saying a word, he gave him a valuable 55-inch high-end TV.
Chen Zhihui knew that Li Yaobin had shares in a certain hotel, so he arranged all the big and small dinners there, and he could spend 20,000 or 30,000 yuan on one meal to bribe Li Yaobin.
And Li Yaobin's ** person Yin Dongqing, who originally served in the army for 25 years, is known for his steadfastness and hard work, and has won a third-class meritorious service. When he returned to the local area, he also wanted to work down-to-earth.
However, under the influence of his predecessor Li Yaobin, he soon became addicted to pleasure and began to make money like crazy. In a tour arranged by the owner of the sand field, he not only eat, drink and have fun for free, but also took away a red envelope of 200,000 yuan.
In this way, Yin Dongqing, like Li Yaobin, became a member of Chen Zhihui's gang-related team, enjoyed various activities arranged by Chen Zhihui with peace of mind, and lived a luxurious life.
Li Yaobin and Yin Dongqing used their positions to protect and support Chen Zhihui's river sand mining business. Before the law enforcement inspection by the relevant departments at a higher level, they also notified Chen Zhihui in advance to help his gang grow.
During the bidding process, they set up special bidding conditions, so that Chen Zhihui could obtain bidding information at home.
Li Yaobin and Yin Dongqing have double standards in the process of law enforcement, and when they receive a report from Chen Zhihui's gang that other people are stealing river sand, they will quickly rush to the scene and strictly enforce the law.
However, when other personnel reported that Chen Zhihui was involved in the gang stealing river sand, their attitude became procrastinated, and it ended with a symbolic "warning" at the scene.
Chen Zhihui's illegal sand mining boat was temporarily detained twice by law enforcement officers of the Water Administration Supervision Detachment, but each time Yin Dongqing would give ** instructions to release the boat immediately, and Chen Zhihui would also pay 100,000 yuan in benefits.
The eyes of the masses are bright, and they have summed up their law enforcement style, that is, "if you are found today, you will pay a fine tomorrow, and you will continue to steal the day after tomorrow". In the water administration supervision detachment of the Qingyuan Water Conservancy Bureau, due to the protection of the leaders, the improper behavior of the two detachment leaders affected the subordinate law enforcement personnel, and they also copied this practice, when Chen Zhihui's team stole river sand, the staff who supervised the sand mining on the scene also accepted a red envelope of several thousand yuan, and the camera monitoring head of the sand dumping site was blocked by the sand pile and turned a blind eye.
What is even more shocking is that before the law enforcement boat of the Water Administration Supervision Detachment set off, the internal corrupt elements had already leaked the information of the inspection route to Chen Zhihui's team, allowing them to easily avoid inspection.
After corrupting the law enforcement officers of the water conservancy supervision department, illegally mining river sand, and squeezing huge profits, Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin's gang-related organizations even did not hesitate to invite a retired policeman with more than 30 years of public security experience to serve as their military advisor to put on a layer of protection for their criminal acts.
With his professional skills, this "military advisor" regularly guides the members of Chen Zhihui's gang-related team, helping them improve their anti-investigation capabilities, conduct interrogation drills, and dredge up relationships.
Chen Zhihui's team obeyed the words of this "military advisor", and before and after each violent action, they would communicate with him to seek his assessment of the severity of the incident, in order to find a balance between controlling the situation and creating momentum, in a vain attempt to escape the punishment of the law.
Can a gang like Chen Zhihui's brothers get away with it? No way! In April 2018, the public security, the public security department and Qingyuan City jointly commanded and arrested the gang-related organizations headed by Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin, arrested 35 people involved in the case on the spot, seized cash equivalent to more than 2.7 million yuan, seized 177 sets of real estate, seized 101 vehicles, and seized 27 sand carriers.
In October 2019, Chen Zhihui, Chen Xianjin, Chen Guoqiang and other 35 people were suspected of organizing, leading, participating in *** organizations, collusive bidding, illegal mining, money laundering, robbery, picking quarrels and provoking troubles, gathering crowds to fight, extortion and other crimes, and the case was openly tried in the Qingyuan Intermediate People's Court, which marks that they will face a just trial.
In the face of conclusive evidence, the law pronounced a fair verdict: Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin were sentenced to 25 and 23 years in prison respectively, and all personal property was confiscated; The remaining 33 defendants of the gang were sentenced to 17 years to 1 year and 10 months in prison and fined.
The underworld forces of the Chen family, which used to be arrogant and domineering in Qingyuan, have now been completely eradicated, and Qingyuan and Beijiang have regained peace. In November 2020, the special working group of the Guangdong Provincial Anti-Crime and Evil Eradication Office went to Qingyuan to listen to the opinions of the people and conducted an in-depth return visit to the situation of Chen Zhihui's gangs after they were subdued.
More than a year ago, after the collapse of Chen Zhihui's team, Longtang Town underwent earth-shaking changes. The business environment has improved significantly, attracting investment from many foreign enterprises, and idle factories have also been successfully leased, and rents have doubled.
The social security environment in the town has also been significantly improved, and the villagers feel a sense of security, which has further promoted the social and economic development of the local area. In the Qingyuan section of the Beijiang River Basin, where Chen Zhihui's team once frantically amassed wealth, large-scale illegal mining of river sand has been effectively curbed, the chaos in the industry has also been controlled, and the order of water affairs has continued to improve, which has been applauded by local people and legal sand mining enterprises.
The Beijiang River, the mother river of the people of Qingyuan, has finally regained its tranquility.
In 2021, in Dashatang Village, the Chen family, who once ran rampant and used clan power to control the village's grassroots organizations, had lost its influence in the local area.
Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin brothers' family members back then, those who violated the law have been arrested by the public security organs in accordance with the law, and the remaining peripheral members have not been punished by the law, but they have also been warned by the local **, and now they are in the village to keep to themselves, live a low-key life, and no longer create disputes.
At that time, Chen Zhihui used his power for personal gain and occupied 228 acres of land to build a luxurious five-story villa, and transplanted an old camphor tree belonging to the state without authorization, making it the private property of the Chen family, showing off its luxurious life.
This once-illegally built mansion is a thing of the past, and the villagers have come together to move the old camphor tree back to its original location. In the process of moving the tree, the villagers who had been oppressed by the underworld forces came to watch, and they talked about the collapse of the family, while the members of the Chen family who participated in it back then lowered their heads and did not dare to be involved.
Despite this, however, Chen Zhihui was not satisfied, and he appealed to the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court between 2020 and 2021.
The brothers Chen Zhihui and Chen Xianjin have realized that there is no possibility for them to turn over again, and they can only undergo reform in prison. Although they lost their past glory in prison, they were able to obey the management.
On Chinese New Year's Eve 2022, the villagers of Dashatang Village were very happy and excited. Their long-standing gloom has finally been dispelled, and their good life has arrived.
And the Chen brothers, because of their crimes, prison is the only place they should go. The trial of the law will not be absent. Now, the Chen brothers, who once called for wind and rain, are doing the same work as other prisoners in prison, hoping to get their sentences commuted through good performance, and return to the village where they grew up, Dashatang Village, to live the life of ordinary villagers.