Chinese Police Catch Armed GangPolice have detained key members of an armed gang which operated across Guangdong Province and Macao. Eighteen people have been detained and one was shot dead after resisting arrest.A police report, which was issued by Guangdong Public Security Bureau on Monday, claimed that the chief suspect, Yang Zhenlin, was a member of Macao's gangsterdom. A submachine gun, four pistols, a shotgun, a quantity of bullets and dozens of knives were seized by police. The gang was found to be responsible for at least two robberies in Macao in which more than HK$12 million (US$1.6 million) were stolen, and one in Guangdong. Seven cases of trading in weapons were also solved by police in the course of the same investigation. The report said that in September 1999, police agencies in Guangdong and Macao discovered at a meeting to share intelligence that Yang Zhenlin, a Macao resident, had long been illegally trading weapons from the Chinese mainland to Macao and had committed robberies with the smuggled guns. Police in the two regions carried out a three-month-long investigation into the gang headed by Yang. On the night of December 6, police in Guangdong and Macao carried out a joint strike in the two regions simultaneously, the report said. In Guangdong Province's Maoming, police captured Yang Zhenlin and two other chief suspects. In Dongguan, police detained two criminal suspects trying to drive away. Police in Macao also seized three Macao members of the gang, seizing several guns and 50 bullets. Through interrogations and further investigation, police found Chen Xingsheng, a chief criminal suspect responsible for illegal gun trading, in Guangzhou on December 19. Chen was shot when he tried to resist arrest. On December 24, police seized Chen Xingsheng's girlfriend and seized a submachine gun. Guangdong police also captured a gun trader called Zeng Zhiwei in the neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on December 29. |
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