A court in Qinghai province sentenced a leader of a mafia-style gang to death on Friday for more than 10 crimes, including intentional homicide, and handed 38 other gang members prison terms ranging from two years to life.

The Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People's Court sentenced gang leader Ma Cheng to death for killing and burying a man alongside a national road on Riyue Mountain, Qinghai, 18 years ago, as well as other crimes.

Another gang leader, Zhang Chenghu, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The pair were also deprived of their political rights for life and had all their property confiscated for committing more than 10 crimes including organizing, leading and participating in mafia-style gangs, intentional homicide, intentional injury and operating casinos.

Thirty-seven other gang members received prison terms ranging from two years to 23 years.

The gang used violence and threats to control private gold mining, illegal commercial car operations and slaughterhouses in the Chengdong and Huangzhong districts of Xining, Qinghai's provincial capital, and Qumarleb county in Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture, seriously disrupting economic and social order, the court said.

Since 2000, the gang's members had caused one death, two serious injuries and nine slight injuries, it said.

In April 2002, Ma Cheng and five other gang members kidnapped and beat businessman Ma Shengzhen to death, then buried his body under the embankment of a section of national route 109.

The public security department in Qinghai formed a working group to deal with the gang in August 2018 that included officers from different departments.

In April 2019, police discovered clues about Ma Shengzhen's death during a three-year campaign against organized crime launched the previous year.

An officer in charge of the working group said police went to the mountain nearly 100 times in three months, searching for Ma Shengzhen's buried body along more than 40 kilometers of road. Using police dogs, satellite images and construction drawings of the route to narrow the search, they found his remains on Oct 7 last year.

The group collected about 220 clues and has filed 66 cases since 2018, and 126 people involved in those cases were arrested in provinces including Hainan and Hubei, and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.