One of China’s most notorious illegal casino operators, a woman who kept a stable of 16 young men as her lovers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison yesterday as part of a crackdown on organised crime.

Xie Caiping, 46, is the latest to be convicted in a sweep that has exposed the revival of the Triads, the Chinese mafia. The mobsters had paid government mandarins to turn a blind eye to their operations, which had supposedly been eliminated with the advent of Communist Party rule.

A court in the sprawling southwestern metropolis of Chongqing found Xie guilty of being ringleader of a huge underground gambling syndicate.

Gambling has for centuries been a national obsession in China. Xie’s sentence is almost lenient compared with the penalties imposed during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when gambling was a capital offence, or the Ming (1368-1644), when punters could have a hand chopped off.

Xie had been protected by her close ties to the former head of the city’s judiciary, who was her brother-in-law, as she ran 20 gambling dens in city hotels, nightclubs and tea houses. She was also involved in drug trafficking and bribed police to look the other way. The court heard that she had made at least two million yuan (£180,000) from her illegal activities.

She appeared defiant in court, with her hair freshly coiffed, and at one point drew a reprimand from a judge after she cursed him.

Standing beside her was her reputed lover. Luo Xuan, 29, was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years in jail for his role in the syndicate. Another 20 people were given jail terms ranging from one to thirteen years.

Last month courts in the city sentenced six gangsters to death in trials linked to the underworld in Chongqing. A sweep against Triads, which had terrorised the city for several years, has gripped the nation with tales of sex, violence and corruption.

Xie has come under the spotlight amid reports that she was so contemptuous of the police that she even had her security guards beat up an officer who investigated one of her illegal casinos.

Prosecutors accused Xie of running an illegal casino whose customers played with minimum stakes of 20,000 yuan (£1,800). The operation even commanded a security force that tracked possible police raids. Xie’s gambling operation offered high-interest loans, with loan-sharking profits used to buy drugs for casino clients.

The city’s Communist Party boss has initiated a high-profile crusade against the gangs, and hundreds more face trial in a crackdown that risks embarrassing other city leaders who have been less ready to take on the resurgence of Triads, that had died out with the 1949 Communist takeover.

The Chongqing party chief, Bo Xilai, said that Xie had earned “massive profits from vice”. “This kind of behaviour wouldn’t have been tolerated even under the Qing dynasty,” he said.

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