Anonymous set of photos labelled "Pics from a Chinese gangsters phone" show torture, cars, puppies, piles of money

An unattributed, anonymous set of images on Imgur purports to be an album of photos recovered from a "Chinese gangsters phone." They show a heavily tattooed man lounging with enormous piles of money, hanging out with a series of luxury cars, and participating in the torture of an unnamed man. They also show a pile of luxury goods, and the man hanging out with a cute dog. ABC's Karson Yiu notes that one of the man's cars has a Beijing number plate, another a number plate from Tianjin, and that the recurrence of "8888" in the plates is an indicator of status within the system, as "All 8 license plates are usually reserved for the especially privileged whether by power, fortune or connections."

Viral Pics Show Chinese ‘Gangsta’ Fondling Porsches, Puppies and Purse (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: china • crime • mobile • photo

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

Nice tea set. But I have to ask – are those chairs upholstered with his spare skins or something?
- gspelvin
  
  Between the tea set, the shape of the sofa and the flower picture my first thought was that his grandma was nice for letting him crash there.
  - teapot
    
    This post should simply be titled “proof that money does not buy style”.
- PinkWithIndignation
  
  I think it’s more of a Garden State camouflage thing. They can’t shoot you if you blend in with the upholstery!
http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

Saw this on reddit a couple of days ago. I remarked at the time that the rego plates with strings of 8s must have cost that guy quite a it. A Chinese guy I work with suggested about 100k Yuan, or around $20k AUD.
- V10_Rob
  
  Surely you’re not implying that special privileges are still able to be bought by the elites in socialist/communist/whateverist Workers’ Paradises?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Despite the word communism in the name of the ruling party, China publicly embraced capitalism quite some time ago.
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Oh thaaaaat’s who Vertu phones are for
Bucket

Well, it looks like that ‘interviews with death row inmates’ show is going to be renewed for at least another episode.
johnnypayphone

Awesome.
miasm

Man. I think of the time it takes me to scam just one of those blocks of cash… and he has eleven!
jkg

FAKE
- Ashen Victor
  
  It´s China, even buildings are fake.
- John Maple
  
  . . . because?
  The tattoos are very real and so are the plates.
- LinkMan
  
  Where would you even get a hold of a Vertu phone if you wanted to fake something like this?
http://www.facebook.com/markvanseeters Mark van Seeters

link to photo set on imgur:

http://imgur.com/a/RjInD
- Rephlex
  
  Pfft… thats last year’s Vertu model.
Hubris Sonic

In China gangster is Yu!
Gabriel Morgan

Damn It Feels Good to be a Triad?
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Aren’t triads Japanese? Or us it a pan-Asian thing? Or an I just wrong? To Wikipedia!
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Turns out they are Chinese… So nvm.
    
    Learn something new everyday!
    - Pag
      
      Japanese gangsters are called Yakuzas
      - Blaise Pascal
        
        The pinyin for a more high level gang (like mafia) is Tong..but this guy is more like a Bai Xiang Ren, or just hoodlum. Only Qiang Dao Luo Ji (强盗逻辑 – gangster logic) could explain why he’d post those images.
      - teapot
        
        Actually there’s no plural for Japanese nouns, so it’s 1 yakuza, 2 yakuza, 1000 yakuza.
Pope Ratzo

This is an example of how consumer culture is stronger than any government, any ideology.

Dude got it going on. Anybody want to guess how many young Chinese are going to be patterning their lives after this guy? Where’s your Cultural Revolution now?
- http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski
  
  If you wanna be a gangster, don’t do things half-assed and join the Party.
IndexMe

Exiftool says the file was modified only an hou ago? I wonder what phone or camera this was taken by. Looks like the metadata was scrubbed.
- zarray
  
  I’m rather sure imgur auto-scrubs pics. Also being china the phone is probably a copy of a copy and might not even tag photos.
Guest

I for one love the emperors new clothes.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Wish I had big piles of money…

I’ve never considered life as a gangster, I suppose it’s a risk/reward thing. I don’t think I’d last long in prison though so id want to be in a proper gang, one that owns the police.
- davidasposted
  
  Become an MP:
  http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance/resources-for-those-we-regulate/candidates-and-agents/local-elections-in-england-and-wales
  - bcsizemo
    
    Or go into the financial sector….then you get to play with someone else’s money.
http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

Christ, what an asshole.
Jonathan Roberts

So much money, so little taste… I’d suggest that he’s taking the advice of the guy who was featured a few months ago – use crappy phones to hide your identity – but he could have followed that up by not taking vanity pictures of all that money and cars with a visible licence plate (there’s also the fact that the ‘crappy phone’ costs quite a lot of money if it’s real). It looks like he’s fairly new to the money, apart from the obvious symbols of wealth, a lot of the stuff in the background doesn’t look that different from a normal apartment. You also have to wonder whether someone with real power would be that pleased with himself for having a million yuan. I also doubt that the plates are even real, it’s not like they couldn’t fake something like that and get away with it, at least for a while (the SUV is missing its plates on one of the pictures).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/06/china2
My guess is that the Porsche is his, the money is shared and the plates and phone are fakes.
- Mister44
  
  Pfft. No reason to not believe they are real. Someone is going to make fake plates that stand out? Why?
  
  Look around on the web – on face book – you will find thugs posing with their money and cars all the time. Their digs are often shit because they really don’t care. They spend their money on hookers, blow, cars, and guns – not at Bed Bath and Beyond.
  - http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
    
    Surely the domesticated gangster would be shopping at Bed, Bath, and Biotch for all his faux diamond encrusted toilet brush needs.
Mister44

Damn, it feels good to be a Chinese gangster.
http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

It’s not torture, it’s an “enhanced interrogation technique.” Remember, Chinese gangsters don’t torture.
Lurking_Grue

If you are going to pose like that one might consider going on a diet.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  I strongly suspect that the guy on the business end of the pliers may have started out by making a similar suggestion…
- Hubris Sonic
  
  In Asia a belly like that is a sign of prosperity not HFCS intake.
Blaise Pascal

LOL at shoe on head! This guy hang out on 4chan/b?
BombBlastLightingWaltz

Who’s a sexy beast now?
cdh1971

Meanwhile in Novgorod…