(Adopted at the 27th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress on April 28, 2002)

Having discussed the implication of "organizations in the nature of criminal syndicate" prescribed in the first paragraph of Article 294 of the Criminal Law, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress gives the interpretation as follows:

"Organizations in the nature of criminal syndicate" prescribed in the first paragraph of Article 294 of the Criminal Law shall, at the same time, possess the following characteristics:

(1) the criminal organization is relatively stable, with a relatively large number of members, definite organizers or leaders, and basically fixed backbone members;

(2) it gains economic interests through organized illegally acts, criminal acts or other means, with a certain amount of economic strength to support its activities;

(3) it has committed organized illegal and criminal acts on many occasions through violence, threat or other means, perpetrating outrages, riding roughshod over or cruelly injuring or killing people; and

(4) through committing illegal and criminal acts, or taking advantage of protection and connivance by State functionaries, it plays the bully over an area, exercising illegal control and wielding illegal enormous influence over a certain area or trade, thus seriously disrupting the economic order and people's daily activities.

This Interpretation is hereby announced.

(Source:npc.gov.cn)