³¼EXPOSED! - THE TRIADS¼


³PART 6 - BORN IN THE USA²

By

³Khul/Nerve Axis/ASCII Unlimited
¹


³TRIADS IN THE USA
¹
	Triad  growth  was like a virus in the States.  Chinese communities who
lived  in  the  USA were quite wealthy so when Triads began to infect them they
obtained  substantial  amounts of money through "squeezing".  (eg.extortion and
protection rackets.)
	After the second world war there was a world wide battle against drugs,
and  trafficking became riskier and riskier.  The Mafia who controlled the drug
trade  in the States had to find new sources and pinpointed the Golden Triangle
and  Asia  Minor  in  the East.  The Mafia were considered as outsiders as they
were  of  a different race and there were language problems so the Mafia needed
someone  to  act as a go-between.  They got Europeans who had the knowledge and
Asian gangsters but never managed to get in touch with the top men in the East.
	In the late sixtie's the French connection was established and is shown
in a film starring Gene Hackman.  The French connection involved the growing of
opium  in  Turkey which was legal.  The opium was then shipped to Marseille and
Alan Charnier, a drug baron.  Here it was refined into fine heroin and smuggled
in  various ways into America.  When in 1972 Turkey banned the growing of opium
the  Corsican  syndicates  had  huge problems on their hands, and more when the
French  connection was smashed and members were arrested in the USA and France.
The  criminals  simply  refined  the  Turkish  opium  in  Beirut, Lebanon.  The
Corsican  syndicate also had connections with Vietnamnese Triads as Vietnam was
a French colony at one stage.  With these connections the Mafia were introduced
to  the  Triads  and business began.  Trade routes were established and broken,
breaking  top  officials  at  the  same  time  when a Panamanian ambassador was
arrested in the US with seventy kilograms of heroin.  Spreading North along the
coastlines  of  the  US,  Triad societies flourished and spread from Seattle to
Vancouver in Canada.

	During  the 1980's when the FBI and DEA were concentrating on lessening
the stranglehold on America held by the Mafia, the Triads crept into the scene.
Indeed,  by 1987 the Chinese held 60% of the New York heroin trade, rising by a
staggering 20% in just on year.  By today the Chinese are expected to hold 100%
of  the  heroin trade.  In 1987 because of the rise, the NYPD raised the amount
of people assigned to Triad watching, taking them from the mafia, a significant
fact  once  you  consider  that the mafia are weakening.  In New York gambling,
illegal  prostitution,  and  extortion are present.  Police officers and public
officials  are  often  bribed  by  the  Triads  else  threats  are  made.   The
prostitutes  who work in brothels are illegal immigrants from Tai Wan, Vietnam,
and  other  places.   As illegal immigrants they can be abused, paid badly, and
will not go to the police in fear of their lives and being deported.  As is the
same  the  world  over,  these  scams  involve  the immigrants being taken to a
country where they must "work" off the debt they owe.  The amount of money that
must  be  paid  back is huge considering the pay they receive.  Such victims of
Triad and other crimial syndicates would be better off in prison.

	Chinese  societies  (triads)  in New York are known as "tong" and there
are three main tongs in Chinatown, Precint 5.  The violence and backlashes that
can  occur  in  crime  mean  that  each tong also has a partnering unit that is
involved in fighting.  The Hip Song Tong has the 49s (Flying Dragons), the Tung
On  who  recently in 1991 murdered a member of the 49s, and the On Lee Ong with
it's  Ghost  Shadows.   These  Triads are supplied from the East and the Golden
Triangle  primarily  as  there  are  no language or cultural differences.  Fine
heroin  has been exchanged for a cheaper variant called China White.  It is not
so pure and can be smoked (so no more needle holes for you guys out there!).

	Fighting  the  Triads  is a big problem in the US.  Although there have
been  numerous  arrests they only recently in March 1988 arrested a drug leader
called  Kon  (Johnny) Yu-Leung.  He was arrested on charges of smuggling nearly
$2 billion of heroin into the USA!  For the police it is very difficult to find
officers  who  can  speak  Chinese  and  when  you consider there are dozens of
different  dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese you will realize the difficulties
for police to maintain any type of public relations.  The few officers that are
Chinese  will find less problems, while other officers are often trained by the
Hong Kong police on fighting Triads.

	It  is  not  a  simple  matter  to fight the Triads.  To do so you must
remember  Triad groups originated out of patriotism, and now are part of crime.
With  China  as a communist republic there is little Triad activity in the main
land.  If China were to break up as the former Soviet Union has then the Triads
would  have a field day.  With such a large population the Triads would find it
easy  to  extort, fund their activities, and worse, find new members willing to
make money out of other's misfortunes.

For once in the world, this is a global threat that wasn't born in the USA...