Organized crime is everywhere. It’s an ugly outgrowth of society, so engrossed in drugs, extortion, and violence, that it cannot be hidden. Every ethnic group has it, and it feeds off every man. But of the world’s cartels and criminal enterprises, Chinese Triads are perhaps the most ruthless; their influence is wide-felt, their tradition is long established, their crimes are brutal, and they are phenomenally successful. The clutches of Chinese organized crime are slowly squeezing the globe.
The first Triads were actually brotherhoods of political rebels. Formed in 1674 to oppose oppressive Manchu rule, the Hung League was one of these groups. Emperors of the Q’ing Dynasty issued various edicts against all and then specific secret societies like the Hung League. Circles of rebels responded in revolt, and thousands died in the resulting bloodshed.
Another fraternity, called the Tien-Ti Hui, coalesced in the mid-eighteenth century for the benefit of peasants and migrants. It soon spiraled into blatant criminality. Fortune-seekers looked to membership as a means of increasing personal wealth, instead of standing strong with fellow countrymen. Banks, storehouses, and homes of rich officials were raided for the purpose of fund-raising, and the motto of these robbing hoods became “Hit the rich and help the poor.” Yet virtually everyone was poor. Branches of this society carried on in like fashion, and Triads were officially being organized with criminal intentions in mind.
A new chapter of the Triad saga was opened with the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), a movement headed by disenchanted scholar Hung Hsiu-ch’uan. After failing his civil-service examinations despite strong qualifications, Hung became resentful of the government and eventually embraced the Protestant faith. He grew ever delusional as he gained supporters, and at one point claimed to be the younger brother of JesusChrist. Operating under his own Ten Commandments, Hung and his devoted army of followers raged through sixteen provinces in a three-year coup until even the capital city, Nanjing, had fallen. Hung condemned all Triads as sinners and outlawed many of their practices. If the Triads wanted to survive, they had to relocate. And so, fleeing the twisted Christian fury that laid the mainland to waste, the Triads packed bags and left their burning countryside for Hong Kong.
Presently, descendants of these societies claim headquarters in Singapore, Thailand, Burma, and Malaysia, run by overseas Chinese, and their influences are felt in every other country where Chinese have settled. Modern Triads generally conform to some version of the traditional leadership structure, in which positions are assigned a name and a number, as well, that holds special significance in the Buddhist and Taoist faiths.

At the head of the enterprise is the Shan Chu, or “Master of the Mountain.” At his side is an assistant, the Fu Shan Chu. Together, these men pull strings from behind the curtain. Their word is law, and they can place death warrants on any Triad members. A few steps down are the Incense Master (Heung Chu) and Vanguard (Sin Fung), who control initiations and conduct all rituals. They are present as spiritual overseers and are responsible for establishing new Triad branches. Then there is the Hung Kwan, or Red Pole. He exercises command of a street gang and organizes the protection of its territory. He must be a supreme fighter, martial arts-trained. Of equal importance is the Pak Tsz Sin, or White Paper Fan, who acts as advisor and bookkeeper. On the same tier is the Grass Sandal (Cho Hai), liaisons director. He communicates with other organizations, and his judgment dictates any consolidations of power.
On the bottom rung of the Triad ladder are the common gangsters, the Sze Kau, who carry out the dirty work and act as street enforcers. Mostly new recruits fill Sze Kau ranks. Gang bangers communicate on the street with secret Triad hand signs. Some Triads may have altered the upper levels of this pyramid, opting instead to function under a corporate structure, what with a chairman and assistants.
As Triads exist solely for making money, they involve themselves in a variety of schemes to pull in wealth. High-end and low-level criminal activity includes: drug trafficking, extortion, illegal gambling, prostitution rings, alien smuggling, loan sharking, murder, fraud, and kidnapping and ransom.

Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Hong Kong played a huge part in the international heroin business. However, no evidence supports that the port city ever manufactured heroin or other synthetic drugs. Instead, international traffickers used Hong Kong as a transportation hub for heroin from the Golden Triangle (an area including parts of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and the Yunan province of southern China). Smugglers ran their product right through Hong Kong seaports, concealed it in legitimate cargo, and shipped it around the world.
“Cutting houses” in Hong Kong refined what was left over and made profits from street vendors, who pandered the drug domestically. And many people bought it. Official estimates offer that of Hong Kong’s 6 million or so citizens, forty-fifty thousand are addicted to heroin. Health and social service people predict that the number may very well be four or five times that many. A brief from the Drug Enforcement Administration indicates that Hong Kong’s role in the drug trade has diminished significantly as Asian traffickers transfer their opium-product through other Asian countries.
Another money-spinning activity has also gone international: the game of Chinese extortion. The Triads are notorious extortionists who maintain that reputation in Chinatowns all over the world. Restaurants, video stores, and other like businesses fall easy prey. Refusing to invest in protection would be an exercise in futility, and probably one in stupidity, risking the loss of property and maybe body parts. A Hung Kwan and his subordinate bruisers can be very persistent in forcing a manager to acquiesce. They don’t like nuisances, either. If a stubborn manager were to call on the police for help, he would risk suffering the knife-and-limb consequences of a “chopping,” the traditional Triad act of retribution administered with a meat clever. One leader of the Tung On society in New York reportedly extorted as much as $100,000 a week from restaurants alone. He was later indicted.

Left: 18" inch Triad fighting chopper, usually favored by societies from central China.
Right: Triad fighting chain, used during gang battles.

Frightening is that Triads are exercising their influence over American-based Tongs. A literal translation of the word “Tong” would read “meeting place.” Tongs were organizations established in San Francisco during the Gold Rush to protect the cultural identities of severely discriminated Chinese railroad workers and miners. Most Tong members were respected public benefactors, protecting local interests. However, some Tong groups set up opium dens, gambling halls, and brothels. And those that did suffered conflict with competing Tongs, which often resulted in violent confrontations.
By the time the 1960s came, ethnic street gangs had been forming in areas of high Asian populations. Tongs eventually took control of the gangs and used them like military detachments against other Tongs and their gangs. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, inter-Tong disputes spilled bloody mayhem through the streets of San Francisco and New York. The worst of these incidents rang high death tolls, many of the victims being innocent by-standers.
Tongs keep connections with overseas Triads in order to grab a piece of the lucrative heroin transfer. Tongs imported their drugs from the Golden Triangle with wild success through the early 1990s. However, recent statistics from the DEA reveal a drastic decrease in heroin seizures traced through Southeast Asia: a drop from 70 percent of all seized heroin in 1993 to only 10 percent in 1997.
Chinese organized crime remains a thriving beast. Its deep roots in Chinese history and prolific involvement in drug trafficking, extortion, and murder make it a particularly bothersome weed. It bothers the FBI, it bothers the DEA, it bothers the Hong Kong Police, and moreover, it bothers the multitude of honest people from which it sucks its life. Dedicated forces of police worldwide are trying to safeguard our communities, but this parasite from China seems unshakable from its host.

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Booth, Martin. The Dragon Syndicates. New York: Carrol &Graf Publishers, Inc., 1999.
Freeh, Louis. “Speech at the 17^th Annual International Asian Organized Crime Conference.” 6
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Merson, John. The Genius That Was China. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1990.
Seagrave, Sterling. Lords of the Rim. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995.
Turner, Barry, ed. China Profiled. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
“Asian Street Gangs and Organized Crime in Focus.” Illinois Police and Sheriff’s News. August
1997.
Drug Intelligence Brief. Drug Enforcement Administration Intelligence Division, 1999.

Copyright (c) 2001 Evil Monito