Chinese madam who ran prostitution racket executed by lethal injection

The female head of a gang that forced hundreds of women to work as prostitutes in south-west China has been executed.

Wang Ziqi, who ran the gang in the metropolis of Chongqing, was sentenced to death in August 2010 for luring the women to work in brothels disguised as teahouses, beauty salons or hotels.
She and her sister, Wang Wanning, ‘seized the women’s identity cards, harmed family members, ruined their reputations and detained them illegally’, according to cqnews.net.

The gang also arranged for people to teach the women the ‘skills’ of prostitution.

More than 300 women were forced into prostitution between 1994 and 2009, with seven dying in mysterious circumstances, according to the Chinese news site.

In 2003, one woman jumped from the eighth floor of a teahouse and was paralysed. She was kept locked up until she was released by police in September 2009.

The women were forced to work even when they had their period or had undergone forced abortions. If they refused, they were beaten and put in a dark room for days without food.
Wang Ziqi appealed against her conviction, but when it failed she was put to death
 today.
An image released by the Xinhua news agency showed her, along with associate Gu Mingtao, dressed in thickly padded pajamas, their hands cuffed, in a Chongqing court as their death sentences were upheld.

She is one of many gang members who have been executed in the city as part of a massive crackdown on corruption and organised crime between 2009 and 2010 by Communist Party chief Bo Xilai.