The Chongqing gang busts have gripped the nation for a variety of reasons: the sheer scale of the operation, the sleazy findings and corruption which has been uncovered, but also – and perhaps most startling of all – is the collusion of so many senior party officials and policemen.

The nation's news cameras have been a semi-permanent presence in Chongqing recently, as the infamous Chongqing gang busts continue to uncover more high-profile criminals and shady underground dealings.

This time, the accused in the dock of the Chongqing No 5 Intermediate People's Court is a former policeman, whose charge sheet includes crimes alleged to have taken place while he was still an officer in uniform.

It’s a case that reads like it’s been plucked straight from the pages of a crime novel – or the storyline of The Sopranos.

Gun running, prostitution rings, gruesome murders … and a criminal web so huge it stretched to include dozens of cops, billionaire businessmen … and even the former head of the city’s justice bureau.
Two courts in Chongqing have opened trials involving more than 600 people accused of being involved in mafia-style gangs.

The massive mafia-style gang trials continue to unfold in the southern Metropolis of Chongqing. The latest case sees a gang boss sentenced for doing everything from laundering mountains of cash to manipulating the local pork market.

Wang Xingqiang was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for his role as the head of a gang that laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars using violence and intimidation. He was also fined more than $300,000 by the No.1 Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing.

Official figures from China's civil affairs department show that over 1.7 million couples porced in China in 2009, up more than 10 percent on the previous year. And those figures include only those couples porced by civil affairs departments, meaning those porced in court were not included. That hike is more than the 9 percent increase in the marriage rate, although overall the number of marriages - almost 11 and half million - far exceeded porces.

Still, over the past three years, the year-on-year growth rate of registered porces was higher than the growth rate of registered marriages. And the number of porces in absolute terms has rocketed from just over 500,000 at the beginning of the century to today’s figure of more than three times as much. Given this seemingly unstoppable rise we went out and asked ordinary Chinese people what they think more people are getting porced.

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