At the end of the summer of 2018, Chen Hongzhi, the richest man in Liulin, became the focus again, this time because he was arrested.
On the evening of July 21, the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau and the Changzhi City Public Security Bureau dispatched police at the same time, mobilizing hundreds of police forces to surround the Coal Hotel in Liulin County, Luliang City, a subsidiary of the Lexus Group.At the same time, the police also launched an arrest operation in Mengmen Town, Liulin County, Chen's hometown.
That night, the Liulin County Party Committee and the county people held an emergency meeting in Dalian night, and Chen Hongzhi was removed from the county people's congress.
An insider close to the Liulin police revealed to China News Weekly that Chen Hongzhi was brought to justice in Beijing.When Operation Liulin was launched, Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau and Changzhi Police jointly arrested him in Beijing.
On July 24, the police in Changzhi, Shanxi Province issued a notice on the public account Ping An Changzhi, stating that the city's public security organs are investigating an organized crime case and have detained the suspect Chen Hongzhi in accordance with the law.Chen Hongzhi's detention certificate shows that he is suspected of organizing, leading, and participating in a gangster organization.
When mentioning Chen Hongzhi, people often think of Xing Libin.Xing Libin and Chen Hongzhi are both well-known coal bosses in Liulin County. The former was famous in China for his 70 million married daughters.After Xing was investigated, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Chen Hongzhi became the richest man in Liulin.Compared with Xing Libin, who has a relatively gentle personality, Chen's personality is much more violent and aggressive.
Rich and violent coal boss
Mengmen Town is located on the bank of the Yellow River 23 kilometers northwest of Liulin County. It is the hometown of Lin Xiangru, a famous statesman in the Warring States Period.On November 4, 1975, Chen Hongzhi was born in Lijiata Village of this town.
Chen Hongzhi was born in a poor family, his father was a blacksmith.He didn't like reading since he was a child, and his academic performance was poor. Later, he became an armed policeman and was discharged from the army in 1998.
One year after retiring from the army, 24-year-old Chen Hongzhi founded Xinghuo Stone Factory.The factory was further expanded and renamed Xinghuo Building Materials Co., Ltd.
Opening a stone factory allowed Chen Hongzhi to earn his first pot of gold in life.2003 was a symbolic year for his rise in the business world. At the age of 28, Chen Hongzhi took advantage of the rapid growth of the coal economy and registered Liulin Liaoyuan Trading Company to set foot in the coal industry.In this year alone, he contracted 5 coal mines including Xingjiagou Coal Mine, Chengjiazhuang Coal Mine and Tianjiapo Coal Mine.
In Liulin County, Shanxi Province, the Liaoyuan Building controlled by Chen Hongzhi is a high-end commercial building in the local area, and the propaganda slogans in front of the square are particularly eye-catching.Photography/Zhou Qunfeng
In 2005, he formally established Shanxi Lingzhi Energy Investment Group Company.In 2007, he successively contracted Dengjiawa Coal Mine and Liujiazhuang Coal Mine, and purchased Mataze Coal Mine.
After the merger and reorganization of coal enterprises in Shanxi Province in 2009, Lexus Group has 4 main coal mines, 4 coal washing plants, 1 comprehensive shopping mall (Liaoyuan Commercial Building), 1 five-star hotel (Coal Hotel), full-time provincial-levelThere is 1 demonstration junior high school (Chengjiazhuang demonstration junior high school), 1 large-scale printing factory, and 1 green ecological agricultural park covering an area of 1152 mu.
In 2013, Liulin County Lingzhi Agricultural Science and Technology Development Company was established.The base is located in Zhangjiazhuang Village, Chengjiazhuang Town, Liulin County, with an area of 1,280 mu and a total investment of 170 million yuan.
Liulin County is rich in high-quality main coking coal, which has created many coal bosses who got rich quickly. Xing Libin, the boss of Lend Lease Group, and Chen Hongzhi, the boss of Lexus Group, are the most typical representatives among them.When talking about the layout of Liulin's coal coke assets, the local people commented that half of the country in the south of Liulin belongs to Xing Libin's territory, and most of the north belongs to Chen Hongzhi's sphere of influence.
An entrepreneur who has had contacts with Chen Hongzhi told China News Weekly that although Chen Hongzhi has not read many books, he knows business management very well.
However, this coal boss is notorious for his poor self-cultivation and irascible personality.He implemented militarized management of the company, requiring employees to be on call 24 hours a day.In the company, he would yell at anyone who didn't like him, and everyone around him would inevitably be immune, including his uncle who worked for him.The aforementioned entrepreneur also said that Chen Hongzhi also had domestic violence tendencies, and once beat his wife until she was admitted to Beijing 301 Hospital.
In the company, Chen Hongzhi designated a place as a shuanggui base, and if employees violated the rules and regulations, they had to be dealt with in this shuanggui base first.
Buy up and down
When he was in his 30s, Chen Hongzhi became the richest man in Liulin from a poor boy in a blacksmith's family, realizing a counterattack in life.A local insider in Shanxi summed up the process of wealth accumulation by using up, down, and down.The insider told China News Weekly that buying on the top means bribing top officials to open up official channels and control officials; making troubles on the bottom is to use bribery and other means to get villagers to petition, sabotage grassroots elections, and acquire coal mines by means of violent occupation.
A widely circulated story in Liulin is that Chen Hongzhi used money to manipulate Liulin County Party Secretary Wang Ning (the county Party Secretary from 2009 to 2011).Once, Wang was slapped in the face by Chen in public because he failed to do one of Chen's orders.The county party secretary, who was slapped by a business boss, was also sacked in 2014.
Beijing time quoted a retired cadre in Liulin as saying that Wang Ning's promotion to the county party secretary was the result of Chen Hongzhi's spending money.In 2009, after Wang Ning was transferred from Jiaokou County to Liulin as county magistrate, Chen Hongzhi found out that Wang Ning had also been a soldier, so he approached Wang Ning in the name of a comrade-in-arms and bribed him with money and beautiful women.After gradually gaining Wang Ning's trust, Chen Hongzhi donated another 20 million yuan to help Wang Ning be promoted to the secretary of the Liulin County Party Committee.
Later, through the special relationship with the secretary of the county party committee, Chen Hongzhi arranged his classmates, relatives, and friends in the main functional departments of the government, such as public security, coal management, land, and water conservancy, to help him illegally occupy land, cross-border mining, and illegal mining., crimes involving criminals to provide protection.
In recent years, revelations and reports about Chen Hongzhi's evil deeds have appeared frequently.Among them, an article titled 41 Criminal Clues of Chen Hongzhi's Mafia Gang was widely circulated on the Internet.The person who posted the post claimed that Chen Hongzhi controlled the rural elections in many townships in the northwestern part of Liulin County, mainly Mengmen Town, by means of bribery and threats of violence, so that most of the main village cadres in the villages involved in the coal mine became Chen Hongzhi's spokesperson andCommunity of interests.
The article also stated that when the Chen Hongzhi Group forced to buy and sell coal mines, it used all kinds of violent methods such as breaking roads, breaking water, and setting fires.
Some interviewed entrepreneurs expressed dissatisfaction with the behavior of Lexus Group.The Dengjiazhuang Coal Mine of Shanxi Donghui Group is adjacent to the Liujiazhuang Coal Mine of Lingzhi Group.According to a report material, on May 29 this year, the gas sensor alarm at the 5201 face of the Dengjiazhuang Coal Mine cut-out tunnel, after investigation, it was found that it was caused by the cross-border illegal mining of the Liujiazhuang Coal Mine.According to Dengjiazhuang Mining, this illegal mining behavior has caused huge safety hazards and endangered the lives of miners; according to estimates, the illegal mining of coal has reached 13 million tons, and the illegal mining area is more than 2 square kilometers.
Ni Chengwu, the person in charge of Dengjiazhuang Coal Industry Co., Ltd., told China News Weekly that the company has submitted the reported materials to the relevant government departments. Currently, the Land and Resources Bureau of Shanxi Province, Luliang City and Liulin County are verifying the materials.We have a lot of evidence in our hands.Ni Chengwu said.
If the town and village cadres did not cooperate with Chen Hongzhi, they would be intimidated.
Wang Yongming served as director of Wangjialing Village, Jiajiayuan Township, Liulin County from 2006 to 2011.He told China News Weekly that from 2007 to 2009, the whole province of Shanxi carried out the integration of coal resources, and more than 50 people in Liulin CountyVillage collectively owned coal mines are facing integration, and the integrated coal mines are restructured into private enterprises.During this process, many coal bosses bribed government officials and took away the property rights of the coal mines for free.For this reason, he has repeatedly reported to the Shanxi Provincial Government Letters and Calls Office and the Provincial Disciplinary Inspection Commission in real name to Jiajiayuan Township Party Secretary Wang Zhenyu.
Wang Yongming told China News Weekly that the government of Jiajiayuan Township kept the official seals of each village at that time.In March 2007, the township government asked me to give up the ownership of the coal mines in our village. Although I did not sign, the township cadres stamped the transfer of the two coal mines in our village to Chen Hongzhi and another coal boss.
Wang Yongming said that during this period, he received threats on the phone twice from a man with a northeast accent who claimed to be a gangster, and also received a threatening text message from someone claiming to be one of Chen Hongzhi's subordinates.
There are also rumors that Chen Qiuping, secretary of the Chengjiazhuang Town Party Committee, was dug up because he did not cooperate with Chen Hongzhi. In 2017, during the Ching Ming Festival, when Chen Qiuping went home to visit the grave, Chen Hongzhi arranged for a gang of thugs to destroy the ancestral grave of Chen Qiuping’s family., and smashed the tombstone.
Chen Qiuping told China News Weekly that it is inconvenient for him to reveal the details of Chen Hongzhi's behavior because it is currently in the stage of police investigation.He just wrote in the text message that people are doing it, and the sky is watching, and the French Open is back, and there are no omissions.
An entrepreneur in Liulin County told China News Weekly that Chen Hongzhi was very kind to the thugs he hired, and many of them were willing to work for them, even going to jail.For example, he said that after one of Chen Hongzhi's thugs had an accident a few years ago, Chen Hongzhi paid his wife and children 5,000 yuan a month for living expenses, and also bought him a 200-square-meter house in Liulin County.
The Coal Hotel under Lexus Group is the headquarters of the group.On the night of July 21, several gangsters from the Lexus Group were arrested here.Photography/Zhou Qunfeng
Involved in the murder case
A local entrepreneur who used to run a coal mine told China News Weekly that 10 years ago, when Chen Hongzhi forcibly bought the Mataze coal mine, there was a murder case.
The Mataze Coal Mine in Liulin County, Shanxi Province straddles Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, and is mined in two provinces from one coal field. It was originally operated by five shareholders including Xue Wuhan.After Chen Hongzhi took a fancy to the mine, he repeatedly proposed to buy the mine, but was rejected by the mine's shareholders.
In October 2007, under the guise of building roads, Chen Hongzhi cut off the road leading to the mine, which prevented the mine from transporting raw coal and was forced to stop production.In the end, Xue Wuhan and others had to sell the coal mine to Chen Hongzhi.
After getting the mine, Chen Hongzhi proposed to buy it together with the tens of thousands of tons of raw coal in the mine, but Xue Wuhan and others did not accept Chen's offer, and decided to sell the coal to Wang Liangzhu, the owner of Jinyuan Company in Liulin County.On the afternoon of December 30, 2007, Xue Wuhan, Wang Liangzhu and his driver Gao Sanping went to Mataze Coal Mine for coal inspection. On the way back, Gao Sanping was surrounded and beaten by dozens of people from Chen Hongzhi's gang.Gao Sanping died on the spot due to the opponent's heavy shot, and was thrown into a ditch more than 30 meters deep.
Several interviewees said that after the accident, Chen Hongzhi publicly stated that he had four main coal mines and was willing to use the funds of one mine to settle the matter.
After the Gao Sanping incident, Chen Hongzhi arranged all the criminals involved in the case in three batches to a certain hotel in Beijing to avoid the limelight.As the family members of the deceased continued to pursue the case, in 2008, the Ministry of Public Security established the case as a criminal organization case and listed it for investigation.The Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau also set up a special case team.
An entrepreneur in Taiyuan told China News Weekly that after Gao Sanping's murder, Chen Hongzhi hid in Taiyuan for a while.During this period, he asked Xing Libin to find Nie Chunyu, then Secretary of the Luliang Municipal Party Committee, to clear up the relationship (Nie was dismissed from the Standing Committee and Secretary General of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee in August 2014, and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for accepting bribes).
After hiding for about two years, Chen Hongzhi was finally safe and sound.Ten years later, the reason and process of Chen Hongzhi's escape from the case are still a mystery.
In April this year, the disappearance of an employee of the Lexus Group became the trigger for the downfall of Chen Hongzhi and his underworld group.
On April 20, a male body was found in a coal pile in Dongyuan Port, Pei County, Xuzhou City.The Peixian police confirmed his identity through his work permit and ID card—Jing Jike, an employee of the Dajinggou Coal Washing Plant of Lexus Group.
Jing Jike's family members believe that Jing was injured while working on April 18 and was thrown into a coal truck, causing him to be covered by coal and suffocated to death.
On May 8, the appraisal notice issued by the Peixian police showed that the cause of Jing Jike's death was the death of traumatic shock caused by a huge blunt external force.
On May 15, Jing Jike's family organized people to unfurl banners on Liulin Street and lay wreaths at the Dajinggou Coal Washery to pay homage.On May 17, Lexus Group issued a statement saying that the information about Jing Jike's death widely spread on the Internet contained many falsehoods.
The statement said that at about 21:00 on April 18, after Lexus discovered that Jing Jike was missing, it quickly organized personnel to search for it, reported it on the 19th, contacted Jing Jike's family members as soon as possible, and went to Peixian County, Jiangsu Province to investigate the body.Identification and forensic identification.
The statement also stated that the family members of the deceased demanded 8 million yuan in compensation from Lexus, but the two parties failed to reach an agreement.
When Jing Jike died bizarrely and the family of the deceased had not yet reached a settlement agreement with Lexus Group, many articles exposing Chen Hongzhi Group's involvement in gangsters appeared on the Internet.At this time, the central campaign against gangsters and evil is in full swing.
On June 24, the central government formed 10 anti-crime and anti-evil supervision groups, which rushed to various places to supervise the war from July.Among them, Shanxi was included in the 10 provinces and cities in the first round of inspections.
On July 21, the Shanxi police launched an arrest operation targeting Chen Hongzhi's underworld group.
On July 22, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervision Commission issued a circular. Among the inspections reported by the 15th Central Inspection Team to the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee that day, one of them was that Shanxi’s crackdown on gangsters was not effective enough.
On July 24, Ping An Changzhi issued a notice stating that the suspect Chen Hongzhi had been detained in accordance with the law.Judging from the announced case, many senior executives of Lexus Group, relevant public officials, relatives of Chen Hongzhi, and village cadres were arrested one after another.
On July 26, Changzhi police disclosed three fugitive suspects, namely Zhang Zeping, cadre of Liulin County Court, Chen Fuxiang, employee of Liulin County Post and Telecommunications Bureau, and Kang Zhixing, employee of Lexus Group.
According to the official website of the Liulin County Court, Zhang Zeping is the chief judge of the Chengjiazhuang Court of the court.The aforementioned insider close to the Liulin City police told China News Weekly that Chen Fuxiang is Chen Hongzhi's sister and Zhang Zeping is his brother-in-law.
It is worth noting that the industrial and commercial registration information of Lexus Group shows that both Zhang Zeping and Chen Fuxiang appear in the list of group executives, and they serve as vice chairman and deputy general manager.
On August 7, the Changzhi City Public Security Bureau issued an announcement stating that Li Jianzhong, deputy general manager of Lexus Group, Chen Jie, instructor of the Criminal Police Brigade of Liulin County Public Security Bureau, Bai Yangping, director of the Security Department of Lexus Group, Wang Xing, secretary of the Party Branch of Yuanchezeban Village, Mengmen Town,Hao Yuping, a villager in Haojiata Village, Mengmen Township, and more than a dozen criminal suspects involved in gangster crimes were detained in accordance with the law.
The face of charity
Ironically, from relevant reports, Chen Hongzhi has done many public welfare activities.Even in the eyes of many locals, Chen Hongzhi is a positive example of being rich and not forgetting his roots.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, Lingzhi Coal Co., Ltd. donated 1 million yuan in cash and materials to the disaster area.
An article reported his contribution to Lijiata Village in this way: The villagers of Lijiata Village who were originally poor have become the most envied group of people in Liulin County—not only did they move outEarth cave dwellings, and also live in a couplet with an average household area of 227 square meters.Cottage.Lexus Group invested and built 218 houses with a total investment of more than 80 million yuan.Many villagers also took off their farm skins to change their work clothes, and transformed themselves into employees of companies under the Lexus Group.
Another article said that Lexus Group spent billions of dollars on public welfare undertakings in many fields: building road tunnels, building the Yellow River Bridge, treating barren hills and slopes, building new villages for immigrants, subsidizing basic education, and donating to poor students.
On January 25, 2011, Chengjiazhuang Middle School, Chen Hongzhi's alma mater, was taken over by Lexus Group and became a public private school under the main investment and comprehensive management of the group.The comprehensive ranking of the school has risen rapidly from the previous 30 in the city to the first place; the number of students has soared from 297 at the beginning of the takeover to 1043 today.
On July 15, 2017, the Liulin Yellow River Bridge invested and built by Lexus Group completed the construction of the superstructure of the main bridge, with a total investment of 177 million yuan.In recent years, Lexus Group has also extensively repaired roads. At present, Mengmen Town, Chengjiazhuang Town, Wangjiagou Township, etc. have built and are building roads with a total mileage of 122.55 kilometers and a total investment of 1.536 billion yuan.
Based on the above-mentioned behaviors, Chen Hongzhi was awarded the honorary title of Advanced Individual in Social Poverty Alleviation in Shanxi Province.
An insider close to Liulin's officialdom told China News Weekly that in Liulin, Chen Hongzhi's business stall may not be the largest, but he is the most famous, because every year he strives to become a large taxpayer and rush to do public welfare undertakings, so as to giveLocal officials bring achievements and GDP, and he can get closer to officials.
However, this insider said that because of Chen Hongzhi's bad reputation, in recent years, some new cadres who came to Luliang or Liulin consciously kept a distance from him, so as not to get angry.The insider said, for example, a few years ago, after a major leader of the Lvliang Municipal Party Committee took office in the local area, he was determined not to see him. Even for some normal activities, as long as Chen Hongzhi participated, he tried to avoid seeing him.She didn't want to associate with him, and didn't dare to touch him, so she could only hide from him.
In mid-August, when a reporter from China News Weekly visited Liulin County, they saw a number of slogans hanging on the road saying "Eradicate gangsters, tyrants, gangsters and evil, destroy tyrants and gangsters, etc."Similar slogans are constantly scrolling on the LED display screens in front of banks, schools, supermarkets, hotels, etc.
The person in charge of a hotel told China News Weekly that these slogans were printed at the request of the local industry and commerce department shortly after Chen Hongzhi was arrested.
During the raging anti-crime campaign, the mood of the local people is also mixed.
Xing Libin, the boss of Lend Lease Group, who was once the richest man in Liulin, encountered a debt crisis at the end of 2013. Coupled with the collapse of his political and business circle of friends, the entire business kingdom eventually collapsed.In March 2014, he was taken away by the police at Taiyuan Wusu Airport for investigation. To this day, the case is still inconclusive, and his huge assets of the Liansheng Group have also been left behind.
After the Chen Hongzhi case broke out, many local people in Liulin worried that a similar Lend Lease incident would happen again, leading to the coal industry being stranded and employment shrinking.
On August 11, World Jinshang.com issued a document on its official account stating that Lexus Group’s coal quality is mainly high-sulfur main coke, accounting for half of Liulin’s high-sulfur coal.Before the Chen Hongzhi incident, the average daily output was 10,000 to 20,000 tons, but the current daily output has dropped to 5,000 to 6,000 tons.
Many interviewees said that after Chen Hongzhi was arrested, it is said that many rural development projects in his hometown of Mengmen Township were stranded, and many employees had to leave their jobs.Before the incident, the resettlement and relocation project in the coal mining subsidence area undertaken by Lexus Group has also come to a standstill.
