Two Blue Lanterns Signal the Birth of a Triad Gangster

by Richard S. Ehrlich

HONG KONG -- When two blue lanterns appear in a squalid backstreet, it often means another young Chinese man has died and is being reborn in an illegal, secret ritual as a Triad gang member.

In this British colony's grimy slums, the initiation often involves obscure hand gestures symbolizing a dragon, tortoise, snake or tiger in rites originating in China's 17th century.

These days, the ritual's elder master of ceremonies, known formally as an Incense Master, hurries new members through a shortened version of the initiation -- fearing a raid by police.

"I bow my head and receive the Master's flag. The colored priestly robe is brilliant," a new member is sometimes required to intone.

"Grass sandals symbolize justice and virtue. I swear, I shall exterminate all the Tartars," completes a vow.

Ancient Tartar barbarians are no longer the enemy.

The Triads' new targets for extermination are double-crossing drug dealers, businessmen who refuse to pay protection fees, and informers in Hong Kong, the United States and elsewhere.

Triads are rapidly growing stronger and more murderous.

Worse, they are leaving Hong Kong to expand their criminal activity in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and Southeast Asia, police say.

As Hong Kong's 1997 deadline approaches, and the British colony comes under China's control, some Triad members are escaping -- with a large portion of their assets -- to foreign nations where police are unfamiliar with their secretive, clannish way, language and operations.

Robert M. Bryant, a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) division deputy assistant director, warned: "An area of concern, as to a potential increase in Asian organized crime, is the impact of the relinquishment of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997."

Ethnic Chinese Triads smuggle Southeast Asia's infamous Golden Triangle heroin "to major exportation centers, such as Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore," for local consumption and re-export to the United States and other nations, Bryant recently told a US Senate hearing.

Triad expert Chin Ko-lin, in his new book titled, "Chinese Subculture and Criminality," said ethnic Chiu Chao Chinese Triad members monopolize the heroin trade in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

"Because most overseas Chinese in Thailand are Chiu Chao, the group in Hong Kong has good connections with drug traffickers in Bangkok and Chiang Mai," Thailand's two biggest cities, Chin wrote.

"The group also controls drug manufacturing in Hong Kong," Chin added.

"Hong Kong Triads also dominate the heroin trade in Australia. Triad activities in the Netherlands have also concerned Dutch social control agencies.

"According to authorities in the Netherlands, the 14K (Triad group) is one of the most active groups in heroin trafficking in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, the heroin trade centers of Europe," Chin added.

Triad strength in these and other countries is expected to escalate as 1997 approaches, because Triads would become increasingly dependent on their overseas operations after China's Public Security Bureau cracks down on crime in Hong Kong, police said.

But a once-secret Hong Kong Justice Department document claimed many Triad members are neither wealthy, nor powerful, and some of their uniquely Hong Kong rackets are not exportable.

Many are thus likely to remain in Hong Kong, despite the approach of 1997, the document said.

A US Immigration and Naturalization Service report, however, warned, "There is little doubt that their (Triads') ability to carry on business as usual will be severely curtailed following the transfer of sovereignty," and thus many will leave Hong Kong before the 1997 deadline.

The Triads' latest obsession, meanwhile, is allegedly importing high-powered weapons into Hong Kong -- and using them -- prompting worried police to test bulletproof vests.

The gangs are called Triads because they espouse a three-way relationship among heaven, earth and people.

Among Hong Kong's estimated 300 different Triad gangs, the most dreaded gang is known simply as, "14K."

The letter "K" in the gang's name signifies the karat measurement of gold.

The number 14 is in honor of a street address in Guangdong, where a big Triad meeting was held 40 years ago when they were fleeing to Hong Kong to escape the victory by Mao Zedong's communists over the US-backed Kuomintang (KMT).

The Triads helped the KMT's failed attempt to stop Mao, and now cringe at the approach of 1997, when Hong Kong's colonial lease expires and the port reverts to China's control.

Hong Kong's Triads include an estimated 120,000 members -- not all of them active.

Police Community Relations Senior Staff Officer, Yuen Ying Lam, said in an interview, "This year, we experienced a higher number of reported violent crime, and violent crime by nature is Triad related."

The increase is because "people are quite worried about 1997 looming, and many of them are thinking of making big money," Lam added.

Current leadership problems in Beijing also aid Hong Kong's Triads.

Fifteen years ago, when China was under much more centralized control, and people were unable to amass or hold personal wealth, it was difficult for China's criminals to smuggle heroin from Burma, or weapons from Vietnam, into Hong Kong.

Today, if a person in China makes a lot of illegal money, he can claim a family member earned the cash by working hard in the now-permitted capitalist marketplace.

Corruption within China has also increased.

A young man will join a Triad because, amid slums and overcrowded public housing, membership can bestow a feeling of being better than others, and provide security, social workers say.

Young men start as local gang members, unconnected to Triads, and hang out together in seedy places -- but soon some of them join a tougher gang led by a real Triad member.

It is illegal to join a Triad, but in Hong Kong's slang, "hanging the blue lanterns" often heralds another criminal ceremony.

Many Chinese traditionally hang a pair of blue lanterns during bereavement.

For Triads, this symbolizes a person has died, and been reborn as a life-long member.

Then their goal is to join the top level of a Triad, become wealthy, and no longer directly perform criminal acts -- and instead be a "brain" employing others.

"Those in control are in an untouchable position, assisting people in money laundering, and very powerful socially because they've never been caught," Lam said.

Of more immediate concern to police, however, is a new arsenal of semi-automatic rifles Triads now brandish, smuggled into the colony from China.

Some investigators suspect they are weapons China gave Vietnam during Hanoi's war against the United States, which are now being sold on the blackmarket by Vietnamese to gangs in China, for export to Hong Kong.

Ammunition is easier to find.

China has legal, commercial firing ranges where people can buy ammo for recreation. Bullets can be secretly pocketed.

Triad members, meanwhile, have an relatively easy time travelling to the United States if they have not been convicted -- even if Washington has been warned that the person is a known gangster in Hong Kong.

"We don't have the ability to exclude somebody just for being a Triad member," a Hong Kong-based US diplomat said in an interview.

"There are people in the past, convicted as a Triad member, who have been admitted into the United States.

"We have anti-racketeering laws in the States, and it works wonders against the Mafia. But Triads are a brand new element.

"It's (considered) a social club, though what these guys do for fun" is criminal, the American diplomat added.

In the United States, "we don't have the legal framework to equate Triads with organized crimes. We're brand new at this.

"But as long as we've got laws against racketeering, there should be laws against Triads."

Triad crime is growing in Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Houston, New York, Chicago and other cities, the envoy said.

Inside America, Triads focus on "murder, kidnapping, extortion, home invasions, prostitution, gambling, weapons smuggling, insurance fraud, money laundering and drug trafficking," according to the FBI's Bryant.

When Hong Kong returns to China in 1997, "this will likely result in the entry into the United States of a number of Triad members and other Asian criminals."

Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

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