Free Whitey's Payback by T. J. English Page A

he has met many fellow Sun Yee On members. “One guy,” he contends, “a Red Pole fighter, was sent to Chinatown for one reason: to oversee the migration of Sun Yee On into the United States. The vessel they hope to use, he says, is the Tsung Tsin Association, one of Chinatown’s wealthiest tongs. Situated in the heart of Chinatown, the association’s seemingly placid, nondescript redbrick facade is the perfect cover for one of Chinatown’s liveliest gambling dens.
    In 1988, infighting over a Tsung Tsin Association election led to a number of shootings. One longtime member filed a lawsuit alleging that fraud and bribery tainted the election of the association president, Tony Ng. The lawsuit claimed that Ng had been placed in office by Paul Lai, a former president and current association “adviser for life.” According to Leung, both Ng and Lai are Sun Yee On members, having been initiated into the society in a secret Hong Kong ceremony.
    The fraud and bribery charges against Lai were never proved, but in a 1988 judicial hearing, even more serious allegations were raised. A lawyer for the complainant accused Lai of hiring a gang of thugs, whom he housed in an apartment on the fourth floor of the association. When asked about his triad affiliation, Lai denied even knowing what the word meant.
    The possibility that one of Hong Kong’s largest triads has already penetrated Chinatown presents a daunting challenge for American law enforcement. In the past, the Chinese community was always allowed to monitor itself. Only when gang violence spilled out into the street did police intervene, and even then charges were haphazardly pursued. To many, Chinatown’s peculiar isolation stemmed from a tacit agreement between cops and the tongs, well known for their ability to grease a palm when necessary.
    Leung says, “Sun Yee On wants to follow the Hong Kong style. You have to understand, Chinatown is not Hong Kong. They know they must move slow and make all the right contacts so they can place their people in power.”
    With few Asian cops or agents, American law enforcement is ill equipped to deal with criminal developments in Chinatown. In their attempts to understand triad groups, many of which speak different dialects, police have to deal with a closed and distrustful Chinese community, the product of years of neglect.
    Any Chinese citizen who is pondering whether or not to cooperate with low fan , as Caucasian police are sometimes disdainfully known, might want to consider the case of Steven Wong. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Chinatown, Wong infiltrated the United Bamboo, a powerful Taiwan-based triad, in 1985. Neither a cop nor a criminal in a bind, Wong was simply a citizen fed up with the stranglehold criminal groups had on legitimate businesspeople in Chinatown when he agreed to help in a police investigation.
    “Every day I would read the Chinese newspapers,” says Wong. “I see the problem. Kids dropping out of high school, being gunned down. We have ninety-nine percent of our population living in fear of the one percent who are bad.”
    Posing as a Chinese gangster with Mafia connections, Wong worked his way into the inner sanctum of the United Bamboo, a group with deep-rooted political connections in the Taiwanese government. Wearing a recording device strapped to the small of his back, he even recorded his initiation into the triad, the first time any such event had ever been taped by cops in the United States.
    With a lean, muscular physique and steely glare, Wong approached his undercover duties like a method actor preparing for the role of a lifetime. Since he was a teenager, he had wanted to be a cop. Throughout the investigation, says Wong, agents and prosecutors constantly reassured him there would be a job for him in law enforcement when the case was over. “They tell me, ‘Steven, you’re a hero. We can use you.’ ”
    By the time FBI agents made their arrests of eleven United Bamboo members, Wong