Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011
Xie Caiping
You've heard of the Godfathers — meet the Godmother. In Chongqing, a Chinese megacity with a population near 30 million, Xie Caiping held sway as a local kingpin (or queenpin) for a number of years. A Beijing crackdown on Chongqing's entrenched mafia in 2009 revealed how Xie, for years, ran illegal gambling deals while keeping a string of local police and government officials in her pocket. She owned numerous luxury cars and villas and boasted a harem of some 16 young male paramours. Xie, 46, who looks more the part of middle-aged matron than criminal femme fatale, was eventually sentenced to 18 years in prison, but not before tales of her power and excesses titillated the regional media.