9:18
They were forced into existence by warring dynasties and driven underground to grow in power. For centuries, their global reach has increased through fear, symbolism, blood rights, and secrecy. There is no criminal act so despicable in which they do not eagerly participate if an illegal profit can be made. Use their name with caution. It is. TRIAD
Back at a time when nomadic tribes still roamed North America, an already ancient civilization on the other side of the globe, was giving birth to a sophisticated organization. In recent years, this organization has grown into a global network, ruling the lives of millions of people by terror and intimidation. Today we know them as the Triads. But it was in the 17th century that the true Triad societies began to establish. They were born out of the struggle between two dynasties battling to control China. The ruling house, the Ming, found itself under attack.
Eventually overthrown by the rival Qing Empire. Among those who came to the aid of the Dun Ming were the Shaolin monks. The same order made famous by the television series Kung Fu. The Shaolins' abilities and martial arts were so fearsome that Qing ordered them to be destroyed. Their monastery was burned and the entire Shaolin community, so one story goes, was killed. With the exception of a small group of monks, it was told they went underground. formed secret societies built around patriotism, as well as a severe code of loyalty to other members of the group. In its earliest form, they were groups of people who came together for mutual interest, for business,
or simply family or clan ties. They were anything but criminal. This is what sets the Triads apart from other organized crime gangs. For centuries they were, and remain to this day, an integral part of Chinese history and heritage. Often doing a lot of good in Chinese communities both in China itself and in other nations as the Chinese spread around the world. The descent into criminality started taking place over a number of centuries after they became outlaws. The triads played an extremely active part in the politics of ancient China.
From time to time Chinese dynasties are either overthrown or created with triad help. The emperors would use them as guerrilla fighters or a secret service. This intermingling of politics and society formed an important foundation in triad development. To understand it, we need to look at how triad societies actually work. Retribution against their own members or others for minor infringements is often swift and brutal, but seldom fatal. It's been said a dead man is forgotten, but a crippled man is an example forever, especially when he undergoes a chopping.
As disorganized and random as this attack seems, centuries of rituals are still adhered to and the power structure is steeped in tradition. The Triad family tree can change from order to order. It essentially sees the dragon head or leader at the top of the society. He may have made the optional posting of a deputy leader. Then come the other ranking officials such as the incense master who is in charge of the rights department.
The Red Poles is a strong-armed man of the Society, responsible for leading the fighting sections during warfare. The Grass Slipper carries a title of messenger, and his importance may be better expressed as liaison officer between Societies. Ordinary members or soldiers make up the bulk of the members. Finally, the Blue Lanterns are members who have not yet taken their oaths. This title comes from the tradition of hanging a Blue Lantern when there is death in the family, but in this sense. Reborn as triad.
Each area of rank is assigned a number. The significance of many remains obscure. It's suspected they have close connections in Chinese numerology. Perhaps the most straightforward meaning is that of the ordinary member who takes number 49 and multiplied to equal 36, the number of O's sworn to become a recruit. Although now simplified, these original 36 O's form just a part of an initiation ceremony. which would take several days and require the offering of total loyalty. I will always respect my brother's family. If I don't, my head will be cut into hundreds of pieces. If I will always betray my family's secrets, I will definitely kill that detective.
If I do that, I will never cause harm or trouble to my sword brothers or incense master. If I am arrested after committing an offense, I must accept my punishment and not to place the blame on my sword brothers. If I break this oath, I will be killed by five thunderbolts. It was made the study of triads almost a life's work. British author Martin Booth. Concern for his safety is so great that we are only able to briefly glimpse the man himself and his location must remain secret.
He says even before the triads move into global criminal activity, they brutally enforce the loyalty of their membership. Triad oaths, if they are broken, are usually met by a severe physical. Form of retribution, quite often the murder of the perpetrator of that or the breaker of that oath. Traditionally, this is caused by, they would call it a thousand cuts or a hundred cuts, depending on which society you were in.
It basically means that you would be attacked with something resembling a meat cleaver, if you like, but very sharp, and you would basically be hacked to death. The name triad itself is actually an English term derived from interpretation of the earliest triad symbol, that of the Hongli. This is a rubric of the three society names of heaven, earth, and man. Hence the three-cornered or triangular symbol which gives us the name.
A fascinating sideline to this history is a design found in many western homes. The willow pattern that adorns so many pieces of fine china is thought to actually be triad-based. The original story of two young lovers fleeing a cruel Mandarin father only to be eventually caught and killed is an invention to explain a design that has a much deeper meaning. This deeper and spiritual meaning is for the Hung brother, the original surviving Shaolin monks. Scholars believe the design was made to encourage each other in a time of persecution.
The three figures on the bridge are not two lovers being chased by a Mandarin, three Shaolin monks. The burning of the house and the false story actually represents the burning of their monastery. The doves the gods turn the dying lovers into represent the soul of the hung hero making his journey to paradise. It was from this ancient and mystic past that the modern triads emerged. They traveled through the massive Chinese diaspora of the 1840s and 50s. Gold lured huge numbers of Chinese to the United States. With the coolies came the triad.
Big money to be made triads began to emerge as something far more sinister than a benevolent society. However it needs to be understood that these triad societies are very much a part of everyday Chinese culture. If you look at Chinese communities in California or Australia in the last century, triad societies for criminal and Western eyes actually did a lot of good work for people in those communities who are often racially abused and socially shut out. Mark Craig is a former law enforcement officer with wide experience in the Asia Pacific region. He says travelling with his cloak of respectability allowed the Triads to prosper.
They moved into criminal activity in a big way in revolutionary China before, during and after World War II. Triads have been abroad probably around about the time of the. Major Chinese diaspora, which is, let's say, around 1840, 1850. They travelled to South Africa, Canada, America, Australia, around about the time of the gold rush. That's when we probably first saw triads internationally dispersed. Now, in terms of criminal activity of any significance, it probably wasn't until post-Second World War. When China descended into the chaos which came with the Sino-Japanese War, World War II and the Revolution, the triads were there.
They often played both sides off the middle, always looking for power, influence, and money. While some triad society sided with the communist forces of Mao Zedong, others took the opposite position. Some worked directly for the Japanese, and still others worked as part of a complex intelligence network with an occupied China during the Second World War. But as the war came to an end, the communist Chinese took control of the mainland. It was a hardcore triads who went with Chiang Kai-shek into Taiwan, British colony of Hong Kong, both of which were to become the locus of triad activity worldwide.
It was to be in the turbulent Asia post-World War II that triads began to indulge in criminal activity of any real significance. Triad groups such as the United Bamboo Gang emerged in Taiwan in the early 1950s. They were mainly the sons of prominent national leaders like Chiang Kai-shek. The mid-50s also saw the emergence of the 14k Triad, which to this day remains one of the most powerful in the world. The K in 14k stands for Carrot. In the late 80s they had 30,000 members in Hong Kong alone. From San Francisco to Sydney,
it is this name that is synonymous with triad. The San Yen was founded in 1921 and is said to be the most conservative and traditional of the Hong Kong Triads. Still using ceremony. Like the 36 O's we've already seen, San Yon initiation can still also involve cutting the throat of a chicken, collecting the blood in a cup to be mixed with Chinese wine, and blood from recruits. This is then called red flower wine, which initiates drink to bind them to the society forever. 1950s and 60s was a time for consolidation of triad power in Asia and in some parts of the United States.
They moved into almost every area of organized crime. prostitution to people smuggling extortion and drugs but all the while they continue to back up their power in the political arena one man who experienced this firsthand in a most brutal way his former Hong Kong police intelligence officer Colin Lamont under growing anti-british gang pressure Lamont was almost killed in a triad mastermind at bomb he was attempting to disarm went off with fatal consequences they started putting A couple of hundred bombs out a night.
A percentage of them were real, a percentage of them were fake. But they slowed everything down just the same because you didn't know until you got them open whether they were real or not. There were teams of police and as you could appreciate, very few experts. But these were homemade bombs anyway, so there was no manual to tell you to move the red button to the left. You had to really discover it as you were opening it, just how it worked and try and be a second guess and be a jump ahead.
And the one that got me on September the 3rd 1967 was one armed with a timing device so it wouldn't really have mattered if what had happened I was standing or kneeling over the top of it one minute got a premonition if you like that something was wrong took a step back and it blew. Three plugs of gelignite went up five feet away. I was lucky to survive. There was a fire officer three stores up and 75 feet up the road who stuck his head out to see how I was doing and he was killed with a flying frag.
Others were injured and I was unconscious for a couple of days after I'd run around the street giving orders in shock and then eventually hospitalised. We believed too that there was a certain amount you There was a criminal element involved in that obviously, because disruption of the colony served the interest of crime. For police with Hong Kong street experience like Conlon Lamont, seeing triad victims maimed by choppings but left alive was an all too common occurrence. The reality is that you didn't see the sort of overt machine gunning of people in the streets that we all know about from Al Capone.
Days and the Untouchables movies. The idea of driving around with somebody on the. Sideboard with a machine gun blasting, you know, shop fronts isn't part of Chinese culture. People hobbling around victims and still alive are a constant reminder in the village that's what happens to you if you don't do what the triads say. And certainly the mafia idea of a murder, you know, you just don't talk about it. That's an important part of it. No one will tell you the innermost secrets of the. the Mafia, the Triads, or for that matter, I guess, the Masons.
The whole idea of secrecy is all part of it, and that's part of their defense, I suppose, is that they've got everybody scared witless so that they're not going to have to worry about anybody really talking to the authorities. Sergeant Dan Foley of the San Francisco Police Gang Task Force. First-hand experience of the brutality and changes in attitude to some of the old ways of triad conduct. In the case of a loan shark victim or somebody that owes the triad a favor, they would most likely maim that person in order to collect the money eventually from them. But on the other side, when there's enemies and they're trying to take control.
They would prefer killing the individual because leaving that person alive will make that person more powerful. So enemies they want to kill, victims they want to be examples to others. But with growing experience, the San Francisco Police Gang Task Force were able to react to now familiar patterns of organized criminal behavior. As we look back in the history of San Francisco, there's been a lot of activity. involving triad or secret society operations for many years, but as of recently, as early as 1989 through about 1992, an individual by the name of Peter Chung came from Hong Kong. He's a member of the Wohato Triad.
He was able to organize independent gangs within San Francisco to attack.and take control of Chinatown from the gang that had controlled it for many years, which was Huaqing. As a result of that, there were numerous murders on both sides. There were arson fires and some very serious crimes that occurred, recruitment of young people to commit robberies to further the activities of the World Hop Toe and trying to build a base here. When Mr. Peter Chung came to San Francisco after traveling around the United States, we in the San Francisco Police Department Gang Task Force, along with other federal agencies, as well as state agencies, recognized what was going on.
We were able to deal with it fairly quickly. Within two to three years, the whole organization was brought down. Mr. Peter Chung had fled to Hong Kong, then Macau. It is now being brought back to stand trial federally along with other people that were leading the organization. The big time was just over the horizon. The triads burst onto the international drug scene largely through the efforts of one man, a sinister and clever gang leader who realized it was time to take a far more business-like interest in the drug trade.
The triads really came into big money. They really hit the big time. When the international heroin trade started up, and they were immensely important in the establishment of that. A Chinese, a Hong Kong Chinese called Nsik Ho, who was nicknamed Limpio because he walked in England, was probably the most important. He and two others, two other men, were the most important in establishing heroin trade in the world. And Nsik Ho was the most important one where Europe and certainly the East Coast of North America was concerned.
He was the first triad to go at the heroin industry with a businessman's eye. His organization was exceedingly good. His network of couriers, if you like, was exceedingly good. He struck up an alliance in Amsterdam with the Chinese triad group there. He and they together more or less set up the heroin trade as we know it today. Limpy Ho was eventually to be successfully charged along with his wife, a major breakthrough for Hong Kong police. This time what he had set in place was bringing in billion.
It's been said that if it's heroin, it's got to be Asian. Thoroughly organized. Hong Kong triads and to a lesser extent Vietnamese and Taiwanese gangs control the heroin trade. Because the majority of heroin source plant opium is grown in the Golden Triangle of Laos, Burma and Thailand. This is where this load came from. 420 kilograms of heroin. One of the biggest hauls in Hong Kong history. It was bound for the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. To snare this catch, the Hong Kong police spent six months investigating a local drug consortium.
It was found hidden in 30 travel bags in this house on Mainland China. Also seized were automatic weapons and police scammers. Hong Kong responded on the drug trade. In the past, it was opium for China. Today, it's heroin for the world. It's all controlled by a strict corporate strategy, a business plan that takes a profit at every level down. Major importer to the street level dealer. And this profit is amazing. Farmer in Burma may be paid 25 US dollars for a kilogram of opium.
By the time the product hits American streets, it's worth over 1,500 times that amount. Almost no other product enjoys this ratio of market. This is why the drug trade is believed to be the third most lucrative business on the planet. Right behind the international money trade and the oil business. Triads are good businessmen. They understand that to be successful, you first monopolize the product and its distribution. Then you brand it with a marketable image, after growing heroin-chic, making the drug appear mainstream and recreational.
Then you expand market share, which is exactly what they did here in Oakland, California. But in a spot check on containers shipped from the Far East, a drugged dog uncovered 480 kilos of pure heroin. disguised as birthday presents. Happy birthday, heroin. All but a small amount of the drug was removed. Then began an elaborate surveillance operation with 100 undercover officers. A U.S. Customs helicopter shattered a truck which picked up the shipment and headed for a warehouse near San Francisco. We're as low as we're going to go. If we stay down here and stay orbiting, they're going to go ahead and spot us in a few minutes.
When a suspect spotted a remote-controlled hidden camera, police moved in. Three men are now serving long sentences. It's a sad indictment that globally, human beings spend more money on drugs than on food. The Triads has been a formula for success. The enormous cash flood provided by the international drug trade financed the Triads even deeper into other criminal activities. By now, they were well entrenched outside of China, throughout Asia, and on the west coast of the United States. The main locus of triad activity in the world, when we talk specifically about triads and not Chinese organised crime,
because there's a distinction, is Hong Kong. Hong Kong and Taiwan. Activities are based on geographical disbursement, so there's always going to be fighting for turf. For example, this is a typical triad fighting implement right here. This is a sort of a, well it's a food chopper, and the triads actually fight with these. And they undertake what's called a chomping, where they attack people and they hack them with these things. These are razor sharp. In places like Hong Kong, it's very difficult to get hold of a firearm. So violence with a firearm is not so frequent. So that's why we see resorting to these kind of traditional weapons.
Internationally, it's a little bit different. Gang wars have spilled over very significantly into the United States. We only have to look, for example, at the Labor Day massacre of 1977 in San Francisco. It became known as the Golden Dragon Massacre. That was particularly nasty. What happened there is that a new group of Hong Kong immigrants had legally come into the United States. Some members had formed a gang called the Joe Boys. They did not respect the established. Order within the Chinatown community.
They did not listen to the established elders and what the Tongs said. They were going to start their own gang. Now of course there's only so much turf to go around. They burst into the restaurant, had automatic weapons and handguns, let go. Didn't hit one.right-shouldering gang member but killed five innocent people, four of whom were Japanese law students celebrating a graduation. The other was a waiter who happened to be coming down the stairs and as he came down, they just stabbed him. I think they stabbed him in the throat. As a result of that particular altercation, the San Francisco police established what is still in existence.
Today the gang task force and they were instrumental in actually cleaning up Chinatown. So how does a petty triad gang leader make his way up in the world? His choices are varied with a common theme of crime. He may choose to move into thuggery, can collect gambling debts, provide transport couriers for drugs or even supply security. Or he may want to start his ascent in petty extortion running young girls as prostitutes, recreational gaming and street trading. Or if tough and smart enough, gang rivalry may be his choice.
He'll settle inter-gang disputes over territory and organize muscle for fights. A favorite and simple technique of recovering bad gambling debts used by the triads is called ATM extortion. A method where even an empty account can produce cash on demand. Hi, kid. Hello. Look, two more weeks. I have your money. Wrong answer Ken. I swear I have the money. WRONG ANSWER KEN Let's go to bank to draw.
My account is empty. I have nothing. You are a really bad gentleman Ken. Now get our money please I told you, it's all gone. But two weeks and I know I have enough. Ring your mother, your father, your uncles, your grandfather. We don't care. Tell them to transfer the money to your account. I don't think. Does your mother love you? What? Or she'd like to see her baby sent back to her, piece at a time.
What do you think? Hand first? Foot maybe? Nose? All right, all right. Father. I'm in serious trouble. So, your mother does love you. Or my uncle. Whatever. See you next month. Oh, here's your receipt. You can't balance. Zero.
The legend of triad brutality continues to grow. They were now well known and feared well outside of the Chinese community. They originally came from Canton or Guangzhou and they were Red Guards, former Red Guards now, that were incarcerated in various so-called gulags or concentration camps around Canton. Some were freed, others escaped and made their way to Hong Kong. There they had a common commonality between each other and soon became referred to as the boys from the big circle, i.e. the circle of concentration camps around Canton.
This was a term that they didn't give themselves but other people like the law enforcement people gave to them. Very quickly they organised themselves and they specialised in the armed robbery of jewellery stores. In broad daylight they would use automatic weapons, AK-47s and hand grenades. They didn't care who got in the way. Very quickly the triads realised they had a problem on their hand because the whole crime thing is territorial in Hong Kong. It's all divided and you just can't go into somebody else's area and commit these kind of crimes. But the Dai Hun Jai didn't care and they actually took them on and had the triads kind of leading a fast retreat.
Anyway, from there in the 70s the Dai Hun Jai evolved into a very, very powerful. crime group established a good core source of funds and migrated to the United States, Canada and Europe. In Canada today they are deemed the number one threat to law enforcement. They maintain an organisation of 1,000 strong across the country. Now where they differ from other organised crime groups is they operate in cells of about 10 and they base their whole structure.on something not unlike a terrorist organisation such as the IRA. In other words, it's highly compartmentalised.
So if somebody is caught or does in fact become an informer, there's not much they can give up. The illegal immigrants coming from places like Fujian and. Zhejiang province, moving into Europe, very quickly became inducted into these established Doi Hun Jai groups. So what law enforcement now talk of is second and third generation, or second and third waves of Doi Hun Jai. Anyone who betrayed a triad or took them on, met an organized retaliation dealt swiftly and brutally. Oh, they're organized and they are loyal to each other.
They have the same sense of cohesion that the mafia has in Italy and the IRA used to have in Ireland and the rest of it. And if they have to do a piece of work, that is, if they have to kill somebody in order to protect the group, they will do so without hesitation. The ruthless efficiency of the triad organization has continued to place it at the forefront of global organized crime. In the 80s and 90s, new opportunities presented themselves. The staple business, for example, let's look at Sun Yat-Triad. In Hong Kong, they control the entertainment industry from making movies right down to the local karaoke bar. Of course, prostitution, all the vice industries,
are the staple of all the triads and all the Chinese crime groups that operate at that sort of basic crime level. When we get up into the more sophisticated operations, we're certainly talking about narcotics importations, arms trafficking, and. The big one for the last sort of 15 years is people smuggling. That's a multi-billion dollar industry. Commissioner Peter Ryan was trained by Scotland Yard and the FBI. Running one of the largest police forces in the southern hemisphere, Commissioner Ryan says he has no illusions about triad involvement in the people trade.
We are so close to other countries which have enormous population, billions of people or hundreds of millions of people who are living in impoverished states or they are under a pretty strict regime and they want to escape. Therefore anyone who wants to escape can find anybody to transport them. And certainly we've experienced here in Australia a large increase in the number of ships and people coming in by legitimate means through the airports. of people who are illegals in one form or another and who want to make Australia their home. In Australia, arriving illegal immigrants from Asia have become a familiar sight.
These boat people are often exhausted and desperate families. But recently authorities couldn't believe it when a boatload of the healthiest refugees had ever seen arrived in a rusting hulk fitted out with highly sophisticated navigation equipment. It turned out that these 139 refugees could oppose a very real threat to national security. In some cases, it's been discovered recently that some of the people who've been traveling here on ships have been brought by one particular organized crime syndicate to do two things.
First of all, we do it for money, but secondly, to boost the numbers of the triad members here in the country so that they could outnumber the next. biggest triad organization. So it is becoming a problem for us, but it's one where we are having quite a large degree of success as well. For example, the crime groups operating out of southern China in connection with triads in Taiwan and Hong Kong have smuggled throughout the 1980s 100,000 people per annum to the United States alone at an average charge of $35,000 to $50,000. As you can understand, it's big money.
Mark Craig's experience with triads had left him in no doubt as to their capacity for brutality. He tells a chilling story of how close death can be in dealing with gang members, particularly for courageous officers who work undercover. I have a friend with the New York City Police Department, a Chinese-American, and he spent a couple of years undercover in a particular Chinese organization in Manhattan. Anyway, one day he was bringing in two out of town. Criminals from a different organization into New York. They were in the out-of-town car, so it had out-of-town number plates, obviously.
Anyway, a traffic cop stopped the car and spoke to the driver and made some disparaging comment in terms of his ethnicity. Good evening, gentlemen. Do you realize you're doing 65 in a 55 zone? License registration, please. You're doing enough to a Chinese tea party, are you? went back to his vehicle to, I guess, to get his citation book. The out-of-town Triad gangster became extremely agitated by the police officer's provocative comments. He drew a pistol and wanted to kill the officer.
The undercover policeman thought quickly and removed the threat. Mark Craig recalls the officer's words. If anybody's going to shoot this cop, it's me. You're in my town. You are insulting me. I'm gonna lose face here, I'm gonna shoot this cop, okay? But I'll do it when I'm ready, and now's not the time. Gentlemen, try to take it easy tonight. Thank you very much. So the whole thing was cooled down and went on. So just how do law enforcement agencies here and worldwide deal with such a strong and ferocious network of evil?
Almost impossible to penetrate, the individual triad gangs are also moving more and more into legitimate business, owning their own banks and often having budgets bigger than some entire nations. Here we see a police operation about to hit the streets of Hong Kong. Customs officials are moving out to raid the territory. Tonight's target are the young hawkers that pirated music CDs. There are many arrests of hawkers as young as 12. They're often used as expendable workers by the triad.
Any tourist who's been to Hong Kong knows that when it comes to counterfeiting, the Chinese are hard to beat. CDs, and computer software are expertly copied, and often undetectable from the original, except for their low price, turnover of multi-millions. The average careful tourist can avoid becoming a part of the pirating problem, but a more sinister trade in recent years, catching many, the cloning of credit cards. They are surprisingly easy to forge. Magazines brazenly advertise the equipment needed to create the cars. All you then need is a current credit card number obtained from someone's card without their knowledge.
A nasty surprise, get the bill. China is attempting to crack down on its billion dollar cloning industry. It also includes a perennial favorites of Rolex watches and Gucci bags. But it's a tough battle. This raid netted the Triad operating the hawkers. He was arrested. He's not worried, as long as there is big money to be made. A fine of a few hundred dollars will only have these criminals laughing authorities in the face. But the smiles of content can also turn to explosive expressions of outrage.
Hong Kong recently saw arson attacks on six government vehicles in revenge for the jailing of a triad leader. Hong Kong has the toughest and most comprehensive laws against triads, the specifically tailored society's ordinance law. The organized and serious crimes ordinance enhances a police's ability to investigate triad-related offenses. Triad membership or merely claiming to be an office bearer for the triads makes the offender liable for a fine of 1 million Hong Kong dollars and 15 years in prison.
Like crime investigators worldwide, Commissioner Ryan says that organized crime gangs like triads have evolved into incredibly complex organizations. They have tentacles in a legitimate business and share methods of operation with other international crime gangs. Organized crime generally, it's very difficult to pin down in terms of who is masterminding what. Most of them have branched out into other activities which provide a legal or semi-legal framework. As we all know, a lot of Russian organized crime gangs actually own banks, they own investments.
money laundering organizations which appear to be legitimate on the service but in fact are just a conduit for drug money or drug running or whatever. There are signs that major inroads have been made against the triads in many areas, but law enforcement officers once found it almost impossible to penetrate the triad societies. One major reason for this was their ability to melt into a community and to terrorize people while strutting the international crime scene.
Triads continue to stand over members of their own communities. The kidnappings for ransom and murder that take place around the world, predominantly within the Fujinese illegal community. Now the gangs that have sprung up in these communities, like the Fook Ching gang in New York City, for example, who maintain a hardcore membership of 500 gun-carrying people, these gangs have made their big money through people smuggling and narcotics importation. Now to furnish their cash flow they engage in kidnapping for ransom.
Now there's one particular case that springs to mind that involved a group called the Flying Dragons. What they did in this particular instance, they kidnapped three people, all separately, all unknown to each other, all randomly. Had the particular victims place a phone call back to China under duress, extreme torture as a matter of fact, seeking $36,000. 36 being a significant number in triad mythology. So what they're doing, they're sending a signal to the family in China that you're dealing with triads. In this particular case, the poor family couldn't come up with more than $5,000.
So what they did on a subsequent phone call, they took a Chinese meat cleaver, not unlike this one, and removed her small finger. Unfortunately the family could not raise anymore as it turns out and she Ended up murdering her not after torturing her for two weeks Ultimately the experts are unanimous on one point. We will probably never be able to stamp out the trials.
A recent report states that worried Chinese authorities believe there may be as many as 150,000 criminal gangs with over one and a half million gang members connected to large syndicates now operating in China. However, 1998 saw world-leading 3,500 criminal executions carried out there, harsh steps to discourage the rising flood of criminality. Police Commissioner Peter Ryan says anti-crime forces around the world are now enjoying more success, but admits it's never time to be complacent.
I'd rather not say we're losing the war or winning the war, but to say that we're keeping abreast of the changes in organized crime, the people who are behind it. We've had some very, very significant seizures of heroin, particularly only last year we seized a ship carrying somewhere in the region of 400 kilograms of heroin, a street value of nearly $500 million or thereabouts. We've seized a number of ships carrying people. We've caught people coming in at the airport. We've disrupted money laundering chains and we've arrested quite a few senior gang leaders. So we're on top of these people. But the problem with it is, of course,
that organized crime always finds a new outlet for its activities. No matter how careful we are, no matter how good the police are to track them down, the moment we're on their tail, they move on to another enterprise. They have far more money than law enforcement. As you know, many of these major international gangs have got more money than many countries have. So they can very quickly change their activity from one activity to another. As long as there is a criminal dollar to be made, they will pursue it with a ruthless dispatch by few other crime syndicates.
The global criminals continue to evolve and change faster than we can move against them. However, no one is throwing in the towel. It is of course right that Western governments, and indeed Eastern governments, Chinese government, other Taiwanese governments, should act against organized criminals. They undermine society. Having said that. The Chinese triads are a fascinating difference. You can't say that the Mafia are a part of Italy's heritage, or the Cosa Nostra is a part of Italy's heritage,
but you can say that Chinese secret societies are integral to Chinese society. They have their roots in the culture of that country. For centuries they were accepted, and in some Chinese communities to this day, even though they may be. parasitizing that society by demanding protection money and so forth. They may also be benefiting that society in some instances. To criticize the Triads as criminal gangs is right today, but you have to realize that historically they weren't criminals. They were often outlaws, but they played an important part in the foundation and. Development of Chinese history. You can't even eradicate triads in their own home turf, Hong Kong. That will never happen.
Even though it's been illegal, for example, in Hong Kong to be a member of a triad since at least 1840. It hasn't been eradicated. And I don't think within the West we have any chance of eradicating foreign-based crime groups such as these different Chinese groups because they are far too sophisticated and we actually know very little about them. Well, I think what they're finding, the myth that this secret society, that no one will cooperate with law enforcement, namely the victims won't cooperate or their own individuals will not cooperate, has been false.
Because we've gotten great cooperation through witnesses in the community and outstanding cooperation from their own members who find themselves having a problem with. with particular cases and are willing to give up everybody. So as law enforcement and communities start understanding that these are just people and they're criminals and we can have an impact on them and through mutual cooperations with countries, if we can't get them here, they may be able to get them someplace else and put them out of business. So now. After centuries of battle against a sinister network of crime and murder, the war is set to continue well into the new millennium.
As long as the triads can continue to adapt and refine their highly efficient and ruthless network, law enforcement officers admit they will never be totally destroyed. It does not mean defeat. It means we will just have to continue the fight against what remains as the world's largest crime syndicate. I'm Robert Stack. Thanks for joining us.
