More than 140 Chinese gangster suspects have been arrested at a wedding banquet as part of a huge police raid in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, reports China Daily.

It is one of four cases revealed by Guangdong's Provincial Public Security Department on November 9. According to the press release, the Shenzhen gang is led by two brothers named Wang and has been operating since 1999.

The arrests were made on the evening of July 10 at the four-star Nerago hotel, where the soon-to-be married Wang brother was holding a wedding banquet. Shenzhen officers took more than 140 suspects into custody, including the brothers, and seized a large number of steel pipes and knives. A bank account holding more than 8m yuan (around US$1.2m) has also been frozen.

The suspects are accused of 128 crimes, including operating underground casinos, drug dealing, extortion, robbery and possessing firearms. They are also suspected of vandalism and taking part in gang fights.

The operation is part of a crackdown, dubbed “Hurricane-39”, across 21 cities in the province against organised crime.

Since launching Hurricane-39, police have broken up 130 underground gangs and detained 1,420 suspects involved in more than 460 criminal cases.

Source: GB Times