Criminal gang comprised of foreigners busted by police in Guangzhou

By Tristin Cheung, April 30, 2015

Freedom Fighters in Guangzhou. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? But how they sounds isn't what they turn out to be – which was a Mafia-style gang composed of foreigners.

On April 28, Guangzhou police stated they had broken up Guangzhou’s first alien gang with eighteen people arrested - including two Chinese.

According to the Guangzhou Daily, the gang was started in 2009 and it's presently comprised of over 20 members.

Most, if not all, of these members are legally licensed to live in Guangzhou and many of them own “businesses” around the city and in outlying areas, such as Foshan and Dongguan, according to authorities.

Led by Odunukew Chinedu and Abdoulaye, it was a stable organization with unambiguous tiers and division of duties. The group organized annual meetings where uniforms, wristbands, hats and other items were distributed, all with a logo of handcuffed wrists with an axe hacking at the chain (surely ominous for authorities making the arrests).

The Freedom Fighters gang utilized axes and brass knuckles in its activities, which included robbery, blackmail and debt collection. The group hunted down debts that promised between 20-50 percent payouts and regularly forced victims to pay from USD500-1000 in exchange for their safety.

Over the past four months, three operations were carried out to arrest suspected gang members. These police crackdowns are widely attributed to the gangs demise.

The Freedom Fighters gang came onto the police radar when, in 2014, they robbed a foreigner. After several months of investigation the gang was discovered and its inner workings became apparent, according to authorities.

In recent weeks both police and Chinese netizens have pointed to the troubling link between Guangzhou's African population and criminal operations (both amature and organized).

According to data from the Guangzhou Division of Exit and Entry Administration Department, there are 118,000 expats living in Guangzhou, among which Asians take up 57,000, and Africans 16,000 (14 percent) (50 percent of them from developing nations).

[Images via the Guangzhou Daily]