The female head of a gang in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing that forced hundreds of women to work as prostitutes -- some of whom died or went mad -- was executed Wednesday, state media said.
Wang Ziqi, who ran a gang that operated brothels under the guise of teahouses, beauty salons or hotels, was sentenced to death in August 2010, the China News Service said. Her subsequent appeal failed and she was put to death.
According to previous media reports, Wang ran the gang with her sister Wang Wanning, who fled abroad but was caught and brought back to China in April. Two other sisters were also involved.
From 1994 to 2009, the gang forced more than 300 women looking for employment at local jobs markets into prostitution by luring them to the beauty salons or hotels, cqnews.net, a website that belongs to the official Chongqing Daily, reported.
The Chongqing Fifth Intermediate People's Court, which sentenced Wang Ziqi, was unavailable for comment.
The sisters would control the women by using methods such as "seizing their ID cards, ruining their reputations, harming their family members, confiscating the money they earnt and detaining them illegally," the cqnews.net report said.
They also arranged for designated people to teach the women the "skills" of prostitution, it added.
The women had to work even when they had their period or after they had undergone forced abortions, or risk being beaten and put in a dark room for days without food.
Seven of the women died in mysterious circumstances, the report said.
In 2003, one of the women jumped from the eighth floor of a teahouse and was paralysed. But she was still kept locked up until she was released by police in September 2009, it added.
Another woman who tried to escape but was caught became mentally ill. Her husband said she went missing in February 2005, and after looking for her for years, he divorced her in July 2009, the report said.
But the following month, she suddenly reappeared looking haggard and pale, with scars on her hands and feet.
After that, she would often wake up in the night, strip naked and walk out. Her family took her to see a psychiatrist, who said her behaviour was the result of being locked up and terrified for a long time.
Wang Ziqi is one of many gang members to have been executed in Chongqing as part of a huge crackdown on graft and organised crime in the megacity in 2009 and 2010. It is unclear if her sister has also been put on trial.
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