From business power to criminal prosecution
Liu Han was chairman of Hanlong Group, a major private conglomerate based in southwest China. Court reporting described a parallel criminal organization that developed around Liu Han and his brother Liu Wei. The judgments said the organization had a stable hierarchy and regular members, generated illegal profits and used violence and intimidation to expand its influence.
The court record described Liu Han as the senior decision-maker and Liu Wei as a figure who recruited enforcers. The group was accused and later convicted across a wide set of crimes rather than one isolated incident, including intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, extortion, illegal weapons offences and organized criminal activity.
The murder cases
Appellate reporting stated that members of the organization killed eight people. The court attributed different levels of responsibility to individual defendants and identified Liu Wei as principally responsible for the deaths. Liu Han's own appeal also examined evidence concerning intentional homicide and intentional injury, showing that the murder findings were part of the case against the leadership rather than a generalized label placed on every defendant.
Crime by Region counts this as one organized-crime case file. The underlying homicides were prosecuted as part of the same criminal-enterprise litigation and are not split into multiple pages simply to increase the archive count.
Seven trials and 36 defendants
The prosecution was divided across seven trials involving Liu Han, Liu Wei and 34 other defendants. In May 2014 the courts convicted the group on charges that included organizing, leading or participating in a mafia-style organization and murder. Five defendants, including both Liu brothers, received immediate death sentences. Five others received death sentences with two-year reprieves, four received life imprisonment and 22 received prison terms of different lengths.
The structure of the judgments matters. Some defendants were convicted for leadership or participation in the organization, some for violent crimes, and some for other offences. The page therefore does not treat the numerical total of defendants as a numerical total of murderers.
Appeals
Several defendants appealed. The Hubei Higher People's Court heard the Liu brothers' cases and in August 2014 rejected their appeals, leaving the five immediate death sentences in place. Under Chinese law, however, a death sentence still required review by the Supreme People's Court before it could be carried out.
Reporting on Liu Han's appeal notes that judges reviewed evidence relating to intentional homicide and injury and heard defense arguments. The appellate process therefore did more than mechanically restate the first-instance result, although the outcome ultimately remained unchanged.
Supreme People's Court review and executions
After Supreme People's Court approval, the Xianning Intermediate People's Court executed Liu Han, Liu Wei, Tang Xianbing, Zhang Donghua and Tian Xianwei on February 9, 2015. The court arranged final meetings with family members before the executions.
The execution did not make every allegation surrounding the organization automatically true. This archive relies on the convictions and appellate record for statements of criminal responsibility and avoids expanding them into unproven claims about other businesspeople, officials or alleged associates.
Timeline
1990s: court reporting places the growth of the brothers' gambling interests and criminal organization in Sichuan during this period.
1997: Liu Han establishes Hanlong Group while the court says the criminal organization continues to expand.
2014: 36 defendants are tried across seven proceedings; major convictions and death sentences are imposed.
August 7, 2014: the Hubei Higher People's Court rejects the Liu brothers' appeals and upholds the immediate death sentences.
February 9, 2015: after Supreme People's Court review, Liu Han, Liu Wei and three other defendants are executed.
Current status
The leadership convictions, murder findings and final sentences in this prosecution are adjudicated. The case is classified as Solved / Adjudicated. That status refers to the criminal proceedings documented here and does not imply that every allegation ever associated with the business network was proven in court.