2006: Yuan Baojing, gangster capitalist
March 17th, 2009 Headsman
On this date in 2006, one of Beijing’s wealthiest plutocrats (along with two of his relatives) caught a lethal injection for the shady side of his business.
Yuan Baojing, “stock market whizzkid”, had risen from the nameless masses of China’s countryside to prosper in “Red” China’s authoritarian capitalism.
Though worth billions (or at least hundreds of millions), Yuan went down over the trivial sum of $9 million — the amount he reckoned a business associate had taken by fraud.
But then, it’s always impolite to count the corpses stuffed into the pillars of capital. The surprise here is that Yuan got caught: he’d hired a dirty cop to kill that business partner, but after the plot failed the cop started blackmailing the tycoon. Yuan responded by hiring his brother and cousin to pop the cop.
Yuan survived a scheduled execution the preceding October by transferring billions in assets to the Chinese government — understandably triggering some complaints about fair play.
Those billions bought him five months.*
On this date, he and his hirelings were given a public trial in Liaoyang, followed by an immediate lethal injection in one of China’s mobile execution vans.
* The mogul’s wife, Tibetan dancer Zhou Ma, was herself swindled during this period as she spread around cash trying to save her husband’s life.
On this day..
- 1542: Margaret Davy, poysoner - 2020
- 1780: Elizabeth Butchill, Trinity College Cambridge bedding-girl - 2019
- 1830: Robert Emond - 2018
- 1784: Anne Castledine, infanticide - 2017
- 1706: Matthias Kraus, Bavarian rebel - 2016
- 2015: Twelve in Pakistan - 2015
- 1713: Juraj Janosik, Slovakian social bandit - 2014
- 1662: Rose Cullender and Amy Denny, Bury St. Edmunds witches - 2013
- 1995: Flor Contemplacion, OFW - 2012
- 1999: Andrew Kokoraleis, the last ever in Illinois? - 2011
- 1834: Fusilamientos de Heredia - 2010
- 1915: Four French Corporals, for cowardice - 2008
Entry Filed under: 21st Century,Capital Punishment,China,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Famous,Last Minute Reprieve,Lethal Injection,Murder,Pelf,Ripped from the Headlines,Scandal
Tags: 2000s, 2006, business, corruption, liaoyang, march 17, zhou ma
… and in the 21st century.
Madoff should consider himself lucky to be American…