The Dragon’s fire

Part 18 - The Chinese Triads are digging their claws into Canadian businesses

We only know that they exist." John Glenn, of Newmarket’s RCMP, does not hide his concern when he talks about the Triads in Canada. "For some years we’ve had to wind down any investigation on these organizations in order to concentrate on other fronts. In short, we lost contact."
Yet the Dragon’s claws have been slashing for a long time. Like other crime syndicates, the Chinese Mafia was born in the remote past. Yellowed chronicles state that the first Triad was founded in 1674 by a group of Buddhist monks from the Fukien monastery in order to topple the Manchu dynasty. The symbol of this sect is an equilateral triangle whose sides stand for three basic Chinese concepts: Heaven, Earth and Man.
More flexible than the Italian Mafia and much wiser than the Colombian cartels, the Asian gangs represent the new frontier of organized crime. Recently, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno defined them as a priority in the fight against organized crime in the United States.
The situation in Canada is not much different. "Vancouver has become a fifth column of the Dragon," admits Thomas Ritchie, one of B.C.’s leading men in the fight against the mob. The Triads aren’t the only ones operating in Vancouver, but also the Big Circle Boys, an organization of the former Red Guards founded during the Maoist period. "The Big Circle Boys go back and forth between Canada and the U.S.," says Ritchie. "The problem of the Asian gangs has become a big one."
In addition to the Triads (Kung Lok, 14K, Sun Yee On) and the Big Circle Boys, there have been reports of the presence in Canada of Vietnamese, Korean, Laotian and Cambodian groups. "These minor groups often supply the soldiers to the Triads and the Big Circle Boys, the more important syndicates," says Glenn.
The Chinese bosses do not lack personnel. A recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service states that the two main Triad groups, Sun Yee On and 14K, alone can count on an army of 80,000 members all over the world. The return of Hong Kong under Peking sovereignty has forced the Triads to establish bridgeheads in calmer cities where large Asian colonies were present. This was the case in the four Dragon cities (Manchester, Perth, Vancouver and San Francisco) or even in some European capitals, such as Budapest and Vienna where the Triads deal in the restaurant extortion racket and low-cost labour.
In order to covertly emigrate to the West, a Chinese peasant has to pay $10-$15,000. Since he does not own that sum, the poor man "sells himself" to the bosses, who dispose of him as a slave: in Vienna waiters were discovered working 12 hours a day for 170 dollars per month. And in Canada, the RCMP discovered that hundreds of clandestines are being used as drug couriers. "A big business for the Triads, so big that now entire shiploads of illegals are being sent to the U.S., where those clandestine immigrants go to swell the ranks of pitiless youth gangs, like the ‘Flying Dragons’ or the ‘Fook Chow’," explains Ben Soave, the chief of the Toronto unit fighting organized crime.
Gambling, prostitution, extortion and especially heroin are the main activities of Chinese mobsters. "The large North American market is increasingly becoming the playing field of Asian gangs which have planted bases all over the continent," Soave adds.
In addition to Vancouver, Toronto is a big marketplace for these organizations which have recently begun to interact with La Cosa Nostra, the Russian gangs and the bikers. The Vietnamese are instead used as "money collectors".
"Extortion is widely diffused in the areas controlled by the Triads and the Big Circle Boys," explains Glenn. But law enforcement officials can do very little. "Convincing extortion victims to collaborate is difficult. We bear heavy responsibilities for this. In the past we didn’t succeed in gaining the trust of the communities of Asian heritage. Public relations and marketing were not our strong points," admits Glenn with great courage. Then he goes back to talking about the Triads.
"Their structure is pyramidal," he explains. "At the top there’s the Shan Chu, the ‘Head of the Dragon’ or ‘Eldest Brother’." This position has a number: 489. The Shan Chu is the undisputed boss. He loses his post only when he dies. The Shan Chu is assisted by a underboss, the Fu Shan Chu, who often doubles as the master incenser (438). He’s a member of the so-called ‘Vanguard’ of the organization and is frequently addressed with the honorific title of ‘Double Flower’.
In the Hong Kong Triads the underboss is often also the ‘Treasurer’ or Char So (an elective mandate lasting one or two years). The ‘White Paper Fan’ (Bak Tse Sin or Pak Tse Sin) and the ‘Red Pole’’ (Hung Kwan) are two important middle ranks. The former is a sort of financial advisor. He’s also called Number 10 from the sum of the figures in his cipher: 4, 1, 5. The Red Pole is the man of strength: fire teams are under his control. An expert in martial arts, he’s also known as Number 12 (4+2+6).
Immediately below him, in the hierarchy, there’s the ‘Straw Sandal’, the man who maintains the contacts among the members of the organization. It is he who warns everybody else about the bosses’ decisions and the various meetings. He’s also called Number Nine (4+3+2).
The Straw Sandal recalls the legend about the monks who founded the first Triad. It is told that once, in a tight spot where everything was seemingly lost, the five rebel monks closely pursued by Manchu soldiers managed to cross a river (the Wu Lung Kong) thanks to a straw sandal miraculously turned into a small boat. In the jargon of the Triads, "wearing a straw sandal" means being at large.
Finally, the soldiers (49) who, upon entry in a Triad, must pay a fee to their protector and respect some very strict rules of conduct. They call each other brother.
The Triad’s rituals are very similar to those of the Mafia. "Near the end of the long ceremony, in the real initiation rite, a piece of yellow paper bearing the names of those seeking admission and the words of the 36 oaths is set on fire. Its ashes are mixed with wine, cinnabar and sugar. Then a cockerel is killed and its blood is poured into the cup. Lastly, the master incenser pricks the middle finger of the left hand of the new recruit so a drop of blood appears. When drinking this odd mixture — where his blood gets mixed with that of the other novices — the newcomer must swear never to betray the society and always to be loyal to all its members."
In recent times this ritual has changed a little, as the Sunday Morning Post wrote quoting an investigator. In one of the most powerful Hong Kong organizations, the Sun Yee On, because of the risk of AIDS the novices will not drink the blood of their peers from a shared cup, but they will simply suck their own blood from their pricked finger.
Alongside the Triads are the "Tongs". These organizations were born in the United States with the first wave of Chinese immigration during the second half of the last century, as mutual support societies.
"Tong" means a meeting place. They have no initiation rites and their structure is similar to that of a big company, with a president, vice president, auditors, PR man, board of directors, money collectors and shareholders. They often act as a cover for drug dealing, extortion rackets, clandestine immigration rings, thefts. Their main seats are in New York City, Chicago and Houston in the U.S., Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.
It is in Canada, according to the latest report by research agency Eurispes, that most of the heroin produced and handled by the Triads gets marketed. This is a portent of changing times. For years, in fact, the Chinese Mafia had kept a low profile here. Its visibility was wholly internal to the Chinese community in Canada. Then it passed to the management of larger-scale criminal activities and collaboration with other criminal organizations.
Nowadays the chohai are not domineering just their kingdoms, the Chinatowns. They’ve expanded their action range, they squeeze shop owners, they threaten and kidnap men and women unwilling to work for them, and identifying and arresting them is difficult because nobody talks out of fear of their retribution. And silence is the Triads’ greatest ally.

(translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2001-06-24
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=99