From Spiegel Online:
China’s newly rich have become the targets of shady executives and a gangster underworld. Businessmen occasionally hire contract killers to snuff out their competitors. There are unscrupulous bosses who want to keep workers who demand their wages off their backs. And criminals who will blackmail or kidnap the rich in order to get at their fortune.
It’s a development that is creating the perfect market for a burgeoning security business. In today’s China, there is no shortage of work for the industry. Young fellows clad in badly cut, drab uniforms guard the restaurants, commercial centers and residential neighborhoods of the well-off. And although the government officially prohibits private bodyguards, some specialize in providing personal protection for celebrities — calling themselves “risk managers” or “security advisors” in order to skirt the law. Countless private or semi-private firms have shot out of the ground to create a veritable cottage industry. [Full text]
