The Jixi Public Security Bureau in Heilongjiang Province issued a reward notice on October 14, which attracted widespread public attention. The notice mentioned that the Public Security Bureau had destroyed a mafia criminal group headed by "Yu Tao, Zhang Xuxia, and Yu Bo" and publicly solicited relevant evidence.

Dual identity of senior officials involved in mafia

According to reports, among the three mafia leaders, Yu Tao was the deputy director of the Harbin Public Security Bureau, Zhang Xuxia was his wife, and there was also his sister Yu Bo. Yu Tao was born in 1962 and has worked in the public security system for a long time. In 2011, he became the executive deputy director of the Harbin Public Security Bureau. In January 2022, he was removed from his post before his retirement, and was subsequently investigated in July this year, revealing his close ties with the mafia.

Such a transformation is shocking. Senior public security officials who are supposed to maintain social order have become the leaders of the mafia. The public feels extremely ironic about this phenomenon.

The dark side of China's public security system

In China, it is not an isolated case that the chief and deputy chief of the public security bureau have become gang leaders. In fact, such incidents are common. For example, Bai Bo, the former deputy chief of the Shihezi Municipal Public Security Bureau, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for organizing gang-related crimes; Jia Jingbo, the chief of the Urad Front Banner Public Security Bureau in Inner Mongolia, was sentenced to death for establishing a large-scale gang-related organization with a case amount of up to 1.4 billion yuan; Wang Yufan, the deputy chief of Tonghua City, was sentenced to death for crimes such as drug trafficking and organizing prostitution.

These cases show that the corruption problem in the public security system has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but what is more worrying is that those gang-related officials who have not yet been dismissed are still in office. There are deep reasons behind this phenomenon.

Lack of power and moral degradation

There are two main reasons why the chief and deputy chief of the public security bureau have embarked on this road of no return:

Lack of supervision of power: Senior public security officials have huge power, but lack effective constraints and supervision. Such power allows them to take risks and use their power to seek benefits for themselves. Even if someone reports it, they can easily deal with it.

Moral decline: In the CCP officialdom, profit-seeking has become the norm. Many officials have lost their bottom line in the face of the temptation of interests, especially the police chief, who is more easily corrupted by power and money and eventually chooses to cooperate with the underworld.

The influence of the totalitarian system

The behavior of the police chief is not accidental. The root cause lies in the one-party dictatorship system of the CCP. Such a totalitarian system is essentially like a huge underworld, lacking transparency and accountability mechanisms. Therefore, the collusion between the underworld and the public security system not only reflects the corruption of individual officials, but also the epitome of institutional corruption.

In summary, the phenomenon of the deputy director of public security becoming a gangster boss reflects the deeper governance crisis in Chinese society. Against this background, if there is no fundamental reform of the CCP system, this phenomenon will only intensify.