[4] After liberalization under Deng Xiaoping, gangs made a comeback in the city, this time with associates within the Communist Party.

[4] Politburo member Bo Xilai, the head of the Communist Party in Chongqing since November 2007, made "cleaning up the city" a priority,[5] bringing in trusted outside aides such as Wang Lijun to lead the crackdown on gangs and corruption.

[13] The highest-profile defendant has been deputy police commissioner Wen Qiang's sister-in-law, Xie Caiping (Chinese: 谢才萍), reputedly the ringleader of the syndicate and dubbed the "Godmother of Chongqing".

[23] The announcement of Wen's death sentence was met with cheers and exuberance outside the courtroom by victims and other Chongqing citizens.

[25] Wen's wife, Zhou Xiaoya, confessed to accepting bribes of some 4.5 million yuan, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

[26] Some liberal Chinese media sources, including Southern Weekend, Caixin and Sanlian Life Week, have complained that in a rush to secure convictions, authorities are not fully heeding the legal requirements of due process.

[27] In December 2009 defence lawyer, Li Zhuang was arrested and accused of "coaching his client (Gong Gangmo) to make false claims of torture".

[27] On 27 July 2010, another lawyer, Zhu Mingyong, released videotapes of his client Fan Qihang accusing authorities of torturing him almost every day for six months.

His lawyer Zhu hoped to use the video evidence to persuade the Supreme People's Court, which reviewed the case in mid-2010, to reverse the death sentence on his client.

The removal of large numbers of gangsters created a noticeable improvement in public safety but experts and locals think the results are unlikely to be permanent, as new crime bosses are expected to emerge.