A young man in Xi’an, a city in North Central China’s Shaanxi province, anonymously tipped off police about illegal activity happening in an internet cafe. After police arrived and apprehended eight men into custody, the informant began receiving death threats.
The informant, lets call him Mr Guo, is confused as to why he’s receiving death threats and how his identity was leaked. Shortly after the arrests Guo’s life suddenly came to be in danger. Guo was abducted and beaten up by a group of strange men. They left him in a ditch and sprinkled dirt over him, threatening that if he reports his beating to the police they would bury him alive! Keep in mind that the news reports come after Guo started receiving death threats.
The internet cafe in question, Tornado Boy, has been open for a while, and sometime in the last year became a gambling den. Guo had seen that the arcade was becoming a seedy location and decided to tell the police about the debauchery going on. Guo reported the the arcade three times. The police only came after the third report, and according to Guo and the news media, it was because the media started to pay attention to the arcade and its shady dealings.
Guo and many net users in China suspect that there may be some kind of connection between the local police and Tornado Boy, concluding that there would be no other way for the attackers to know it was Guo who reported them. Guo is currently living in fear of retaliation and the provincial level law enforcement is looking into why Tornado Boy was still operating after being reported three times.
Net cafes and arcades in China have long suffered a bad image, mostly from parents who believe they’re bad locations for their children to hang out in. A lot of the distrust is also due to the nature of these businesses, as they require ‘connections’ to attain the proper business papers. There have also been cases of arcades and internet cafes operating in China with connections to organised crime and gambling rings.
Hopefully when this is all played out and his attackers are all rotting in jail, Guo can go back to playing at arcades without fear of beatings.
男子举报游戏厅险被活埋案4疑问：咋知是他举报 [Huashang via Tencent]
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