Most Organized Criminal Syndicates

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

Most Organized Crime Syndicates

The methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” has overtaken marijuana in the world of local addicts. Even people using hallucinating tablets and cough syrups purchased from drugstores have changed habit. Street-children sniffing rugby are getting closer to shabu too.

In the book Warlord of Crime, investigative US journalist Gerard Fosner (the only writer allowed by 14K triad to visit their main headquarter in Hong Kong), claimed that Chinese triads is now the most organized crime syndicate that has  made the Sicilian Mafia looked like bunch of kids in school uniform.

As proof to this claim, in mid 80s, Chicago Mafia Boss Anthony Turano was killed by two Chinese teenagers at the front of his apartment for delayed in payment of drugs he took from the triads. Sad, but he was killed while his collection was on the way.

With the exception of the hardworking and honest majority of the Chinese who have my respect, this story has no intent to slight them. As a matter of fact, they deserved my praises as Chinese race and culture are at the forefront since the inception of written history.

Our topic here delves only on the unfortunate segment of the Chinese race- the Chinese Triads who once have the noble purpose but eventually transfigure into a systematic and vicious control of large illicit empires in the underworld from the East to the West. The organization’s backbone is - illegal drugs!

The Triads are virtually unknown until the mid 50s. Auguste Joseph Ricord, the Corsican mastermind of the French connection, was by then the king of heroin trade from Turkey to Marseilles and into New York until mid-70s. (After only a decade, he was seen turning to the Triads whenever he ran out of supply.)

Heroin addiction, however, declined at the entry of the Latin-American Cocaine Cowboys in underworld business. As reported by Posner, cocaine has made big profit for being cheaper than morphine.  Thus, shabu is now known in the world of addicts as the “poor man’s cocaine.”

But with the advent of the 80s, Hong Kong Triads took control of heroin trade in the US with their “China white” product from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia region. The place is a mountainous mist-shrouded area where hush-poppy plant (source of opium and morphine) fits for cultivation.

Golden Triangle is consists of the Northern provinces of Siam (now Thailand), the Eastern fringe of Laos, and the broad stretch of Northeast Burma (now Myanmar). The Chinese race is credited for the fast development of Hong Kong (British colony) into a third-largest financial center after New York and London.

It became the melting pot of world’s business with the world’s most profitable bank – the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. The most dominant gang in Hong Kong before it was returned to Mainland China in July 1997 was the 14K Triads with over 30,000 members in the colony.

Hong Kong Police disclosed that Triads invented the organized crime. They are the best at it in making into big business, but they are absolutely ruthless. The sad part of triads’ exodus from Hong Kong to other countries like the Philippines - is they brought their wares with them!

Columbian and Mexican cartels, like the Chinese triads, make billions of dollars a year from organized crime – gambling, prostitution, extortion, loan sharking, protection rackets, guns-for-hire, political and civic corruption. But there is one thing that makes them all unique – illegal drugs!

The death of Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and this year’s arrest of rivals, brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejula has made headlines. This year capture of two most wanted Mexican capo, druglords Hector Beltran Leyva and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman gave Mexico and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) the fresh breath of their time.

Not for Chinese triads. A warrant of arrest served for a certain Ricky Chong is difficult for authorities to pursue because there are more than 50 people with the same Chinese name. This only alert drug lords to spend more for personal security, postpone the shipments and sacrificed some men, but to stop them – never!