Original subtitles

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,

controlling 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 a struggle

between two dynasties battling to control China,

the ruling house the Ming found itself under attack

and eventually overthrown by the rival Ching empire.

Among those who came to the aid

of the doomed Ming were the Shaolin monks.

The same order made famous

by the television series "Kung Fu."

The Shaolin's abilities in martial arts were so fearsome

the Ching ordered them to be destroyed.

The monastery was burned in 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 this 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 of 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 guerilla fighters

or a secret service.

This intermingling of politics in 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 rites department.

The red poles is a strong arm man of the society

responsible for leading the fighting sections

during warfare.

The grass slipper carries a title of messenger,

but 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, they're reborn as triads.

Each area of rank is assigned a number.

The significance of many remains obscure.

It's suspected they have close connections

to Chinese numerology.

Perhaps the most straightforward meaning

is that of the ordinary member who takes number 4-9.

When multiplied they equal 36,

the number of oaths sworn to become a recruit.

Although now simplified, these original 36 oaths form

just a part of an initiation ceremony,

which would take several days

and required the offering of total loyalty.

I shall not disclose

the secrets of the family, not even

to my parents, brothers or wife.

I shall never disclose the secrets for money.

I'll be killed by myriads of swords if I do so.

I must never cause harm

or bring 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.

One man who has made the study of triads

almost a life's work, the 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're 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 are 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 Hung League.

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 brethren

from 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, but 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 with the massive Chinese diaspora

of the 1840s and 50s as gold

lured huge numbers of Chinese to the United States.

With the Coolies came the triads,

and with big money to be made, triads began to emerge

as something far more sinister than benevolent societies.

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, the triad societies,

while criminal in 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 traveling with this 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 traveled 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 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 triads society sided with the communist forces

of Mao Tse-Tung, others took the opposite position.

Some worked directly for the Japanese

and still others worked as part

of a complex intelligence network within 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,

a 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 the 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 fifties 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 carat,

the late 80s it had 30,000 members in Hong Kong alone.

From San Francisco to Sydney it is this name

that is synonymous with triad.

The San Yee On was founded in 1921

and is said to be the most conservative

and traditional or the Hong Kong triads.

Still using ceremonies like the 36 oaths we've already seen.

San Yee On 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 flour wine, which initiates drink

to bind them to the society forever.

The 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

from prostitution to people smuggling,

extortion and drugs.

But all the while they continued

to back up their power in the political arena.

One man who experienced his firsthand in a most brutal way

is former Hong Kong Police intelligence officer

Colin Lamont.

Under growing anti British gang pressure

Lamont was almost killed when a triad-masterminded bomb

he was attempting to disarm

went off with fatal consequences.

They started putting a couple

of hundred bombs out at night.

A percentage of them were real,

a percentage of them were fake,

but they slowed everything down just the same

'cause you didn't know until you'd 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 second guess and be a jump ahead.

And the one that got me on September 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 to five feet away.

Oh yes, I was lucky to survive.

There was a fire officer,

three stories 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 fragment.

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 hospitalized.

We believe too that there was a certain amount of,

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 Colin 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, you know, all know about from Al Capone days

and "Untouchables" movies.

The idea of driving around with somebody on the sideboard

with a machine gun blasting, you know, shop front

isn't part of the Chinese culture.

People hobbling around victims

and still alive are a constant reminder in the village

that that's what happens to you

if you don't do what the triads say.

And certainly the mafia idea of omerta

of, 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 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 has firsthand 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 a triad a favor,

they would most likely main 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 Chong came from Hong Kong.

He's a member of the Wo Hop To 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 Wa Ching.

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 Wo Hop To

in trying to build a base here.

When Mr. Peter Chong 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 Chong had fled to Hong Kong, then Macau

and is now being brought back

to stand trial federally along with other people

that were leading the organization.

The big time though was just over the horizon.

The triads burst onto the international drug scene,

largely through the efforts of one man,

the 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 Ng Sik-ho

was nicknamed Limpy Ho because he walked with a limp,

was probably the most important.

He and two others, two other men

were the most important in establishing heroin trade

in the world and Ng Sik-ho was the most important one

where Europe and certainly the East Coast

of North America is concerned.

He was the first triad to go at the heroine 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.

And he and they together more or less set up

the heroin trade as we know 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 billions.

It's been said 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 a 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 scanners.

Hong Kong was founded 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

from the major importer to the street level dealer.

And this profit is amazing.

A 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 1500 times that amount.

Almost no other product enjoys this ratio to 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,

at the growing heroine 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 a container ship from the Far East,

a drug 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 US customs helicopter shadowed a truck

which picked up the shipment and headed

for a warehouse near San Francisco.

We're as low as we're gonna go.

If we stay down here and stay orbiting,

they're gonna go ahead and spot us in a few minutes.

When a suspect spotted a remote control hidden camera,

the 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.

For the triads it's 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 organized crime,

'cause 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 chopping

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 this 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.

That 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 Tong said,

they were going to start their own gang.

Now of course, there's only so much turf to go round.

They burst into the restaurant,

had automatic weapons and handguns, let go...

didn't hit one 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 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

or he 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 traders.

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, Kim.

Hello. Look, two more weeks.

I have your money.

Wrong answer, Kim.

I swear, I have the money.

Wrong answer, Kim.

Let's go to bank and make a draw.

My, my account is empty. I have nothing.

Ah, you in a very bad jam, Kim.

Now get our money please.

I, 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.

Don't care. Tell them to transfer the money in your account.

I, I don't think-

Does your mother love you?

What?

Or she like to see her baby

sent back to her piece at a time?

What do you think? Huh?

Hand first, foot maybe, nose.

All right. All right.

Father, I'm in serious trouble.

So, your mother does love you.

- That's my uncle. - Whatever.

See you next month.

Oh, this your receipt, account balance zero.

The legend of triad brutality continues to grow.

They are now well known

and feared well outside of the Chinese community.

They originally came from Canton or Guangzhou

and they were red guards

or 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 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 organized themselves

and they specialized in the armed robbery

of jewelry stores in broad daylight.

They would use automatic weapons,

AK47s and hand grenades.

They didn't care who got in the way.

Very quickly the triads realized 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 Huen Jai didn't care

and they actually took them on

and had the triads kind of beating a fast retreat.

Anyway, from there in the seventies,

the Dai Huen 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 organization

of 1000 strong across the country.

Now, where they differ from other organized crime groups

is they operate in cells of about 10.

And they base their whole structure on something not unlike

a terrorist organization such as the IRA.

In other words, it's wholly compartmentalized.

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 Jiujiang province moving into Europe

very quickly became inducted

into these established Dai Huen Jai groups.

So what law enforcement now took talk of as second and third

generation or second and third waves of Dai Huen 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, 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 eighties and nineties,

new opportunities presented themselves.

The staple business, for example,

let's look at Sun Yee On Triad.

In Hong Kong, they controlled the entertainment industry,

from making movies right down to the local Karachi 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.

Australian police 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 state

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 they'd ever seen

arrived in a rusting hulk fitted out

with highly sophisticated navigation equipment.

It turned out that these 139 refugees could have posed

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, they 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 to $50,000.

As you can understand, it's big money.

Mark Craig's experience with triads

had left him in no doubt as of 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.

Evening, gentlemen,

you realize you're doing 65 in a 55 zone?

License and registration please.

You gentleman off 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 negative 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 gonna shoot this cop, it's me.

You're in my town. You are insulting me.

Well, 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."

Hey gentlemen, try to take it easy tonight.

Thank you very much.

And 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 of pirated music CDs.

There are many arrests of hawkers as young as 12.

They're often used as expendable workers by the triads.

Any tourist who's been to Hong Kong knows that when it comes

to counterfeiting, the Chinese are hard to beat.

Music CDs and computer software expertly copied

and often undetectable from the original

except for their low price turn over 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, is the cloning of credit cards.

They are surprisingly easy to forge.

Magazines brazenly advertise the equipment

needed to create the cards.

All you then need is a current credit card number

obtained from someone's card without their knowledge.

A nasty surprise is when they get the bill.

China is attempting to crack down on this billion dollar

cloning industry that 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 and he's not worried

as long as there's 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 contempt can also turn

to exclusive 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 Societies Ordinance Law

and 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 into legitimate business

and share methods of operation

with other international crime gangs.

Organized crime generally,

and 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 investment and money laundering organizations

which appear to be legitimate on the surface,

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 stage

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 Fujianese illegal community.

Now, the gangs that have sprung up in these communities

like the Fuk 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 any more

as it turns out, and they ended up murdering her,

after torturing her for two weeks.

Ultimately, the experts are unanimous

on one point we will probably never

be able to stamp out the triads.

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 a 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 were losing the war

or winning the war, but to say that we're keeping abreast

of the changes in organized crime league,

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.

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 ruthlessness

matched by few other crime syndicates.

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,

the Taiwanese government 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 themself having a problem

with particular cases and are willing to give up everybody.

So as law enforcement and community 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 'em here, they may be able

to get 'em someplace else and put 'em 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.

That does not mean defeat.

It means we'll just have to continue the fight

against what remains as the world's largest crime syndicate.

I'm Robert Stack, thanks for joining us.