Gangland UK: The Inside Story of Britain's Most Evil Gangsters (24 page)

This rise in violence among the Tamil communities first started to cause serious concern in the later 1990s following a spate of stabbings and street fights with rival factions across London. The first homicide attributed to the Tamil gangs to be given media attention was in 2002 when a young Tamil was murdered and left to burn in Roe Green Park, Kingsbury, north-west London. He was killed amid a dispute involving local Sri Lankan gangs in the area.

Around the same time, a killing in Merton focused more attention on Tamil violence, and police concluded that the attacks were part of longstanding vendettas originating from Sri Lanka itself.

The incidence of violence among London’s Tamil communities seemed to be escalating, as Croydon’s Tamil immigrants, numbering around 3,000, voiced concern over the violence in the community. In 2002, three Tamils were charged with attempted murder in a matter of two months.

The Tamil Snake gang was the first of the organised Tamil gangs to have been created, allegedly by members of the Tamil Tigers who sought asylum in the United Kingdom. The gang’s leader has not been found, but several members have been sentenced for various crimes, from extortion and fraud to murder.

In 2003, the Snake Gang shot a young man dead in a feud after trying to assassinate a relative. He was
executed in his house and one of the killers also tried to shoot his father-in-law. Just hours before this incident took place, the gang had attempted to kill the deceased’s brother-in-law in a drive-by shooting in Lyon Park Avenue, Wembley.

Following this, two other Tamil murders were committed in 2003. A 23-year-old Sri Lankan was attacked in Wembley. An hour later, an 18-year-old Sri Lankan was involved in a dispute between rival gangs in Ilford. Both men died from their injuries in hospital. In 2004, Sugandthan ‘Shanthan’ Nadarajah, a member of the Tamil Snakes, killed a young man in his car with an axe in Croydon in revenge for having been hit by a car driven by a member of the victim’s gang two years earlier.

Shanthan, also known as ‘Master’, is affiliated to a number of south London organised gangs. Categorised as an ‘enforcer’, or a ‘soldier’, he earned the alias ‘The Mad Axe Man’ and was he was directly involved in a variety of co-ordinated attacks against other gangs in the region. One example was the aforementioned London Road Street Murder, where a fellow Tamil was hacked to death with an axe inside his car in front of his friends.

Although Shanthan’s blood was found on the murder weapon, the court was unable to prove that he had actually committed the murder, but was able to convict him for manslaughter and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, along with Shanthan Tharamalingam, Sasikaran Selvaratnam and Ranjan Shanmughanathan who were part of a four-man team which was a sister group to the Tamil Strike Team who regularly targeted victims in Croydon for their attacks.

London is now home to over 100,000 Tamils. The
highest-density areas are East Ham, Ilford, Tooting, Wembley, Harrow and Walthamstow. Early in 2004, a teenager was attacked, this time by the Tamil Ari Ala Gang, brandishing samurai swords, hammers and axes. Following a number of murders, the newly formed Tamil Taskforce arrested 24 suspects in attempts to curb the violence. Scotland Yard arrested thirteen, and 500 officers searched homes in Newham, Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Harrow, Brent and Croydon. Officers seized a pistol, ammunition, swords, axes, baseball bats and pickaxe handles. In Newham, credit card cloning equipment was found and five men were arrested on suspicion of deception. 69 credit cards and a
£
30,000 Mercedes were also seized in Waltham Forest.

Greenwich is the turf of the Cherry Boys. The gang was formed on the Cherry Orchard Estate off Charlton Road, from which the gang derives its somewhat effeminate name. Members are of Afro-Caribbean origin and it is one of the three largest gangs in the borough of Greenwich (nicknamed ‘Green Borough’), along with the Woolwich Boys and T-Block from Thamesmead.

The Cherry Boys have had a long-standing dispute with the Woolwich Boys, and it often boils over into skirmishes, one of which occurred at 4.00pm outside Kams Convenience Store in Charlton Road, on Wednesday, 27 June 2007. This mass brawl resulted in three people being stabbed, and 21 people from both gangs being arrested. Some were charged with attempted murder, with the 34 police officers finding an unhealthy collection of golf clubs, cricket bats and knives at the scene.

This incident had been precipitated when Ben
Hitchcock, 16, died after he had been stabbed in a fight in Southend Road, Beckenham, on 23 June. Eyewitnesses described youths wielding metal chains, poles and
pickaxe
handles in the fight, thought to have involved two gangs from Penge and Lewisham. In the early hours of the morning, youths believed to be members of the Woolwich Boys and T Block fought outside the Mermaid club in Woolwich High Street. Two 16-year-olds were stabbed and gang members then took part in a running battle across General Gordon Square in Woolwich town centre, using metal rods and rubbish bins as weapons. One victim was stabbed multiple times and was left with a punctured lung. Two people were arrested on suspicion of causing an affray and released on police bail.

B
ritish law enforcement agencies have identified the main Triad gangs as 14k and Wo Shing Wo, but they are challenged by the Snakeheads, mainly from the Fujian province, who operate networks bringing illegal immigrants into Britain. 14k is at its most potent in Birmingham and the north of England. Shui Fong dominates in London, Glasgow and the south coast, and Wo Shing Wo has its power base in Manchester.
Large-scale
immigration of Triad members from Amsterdam occurred following the death of their leader, Chung Mon, in 1975, in addition to those who came from Hong Kong during the 1980s.

Historically, the Triads (meaning ‘groups of three’) engaged in counterfeiting, and have done so since the
1880s. During the Sixties, they moved into copying expensive books and selling them on the black market. More recently, Triad counterfeiters have turned to watches and designer apparel such as handbags and clothing.

The real money for the Triads of late, however, has come from computers. Not only are the Triads effective smugglers of pornography, but they have cornered the market when it comes to computer software piracy. Obviously, since computers and the Internet became a staple of the modern household, the gangs have made more and more from pornography and piracy by employing the most ingenious computer technicians. In fact, the Triad gangs have also been known to make counterfeit films and, not content with that, have exerted their influence on the Chinese film industry. These guys have a network and influence that extends much further than many might think.

The Triads first arrived on our shores during the
post-war
era with the 14k Triad emerging in Chinese communities in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. 14k is one of the largest groups to come out of Hong Kong. Formed by nationalists fleeing communist China, it has around 30 sub-groups, more than 20,000 members and a well-organised leadership. Although illegal gambling dens, brothels and mah-jong schools have developed in rundown Chinese communities since the late 1940s, authorities largely turned a blind eye and ignored the minor criminal activities from a generally law-abiding and industrious segment of British society, particularly as the Chinese takeaway became as popular as fish ’n’ chips. However, with the large scale of immigration encouraged by the Labour Party in 1964,
there was a huge influx of Hong Kong immigrants, some of whom were affiliated to particular Triad groups, who, in turn, were eager to expand drug-trafficking networks into Europe. Although nearly all the Triad groups operating in Britain were affliliated with 14k, each operated independently of the Hong Kong 14k and generally viewed each other as rivals.

As well as in Hong Kong, they are active around the world and the 14k Triad engages in a wide array of criminal activities such as credit card fraud; its worldwide reach allows it to gather credit card information globally. The 14k Triad fought a bloody turf war with the smaller Shui Fong Triad in Macau during the mid-1990s.

Shui Fong, also known as Wo On Lok, originated from a workers’ union formed as part of the Hong Kong soft drink company, Wo On Lok – literally, it means ‘water room’. Over the course of the conflict, more than 30 people were killed in gun battles, fire bombings and knife fights. Even Portuguese colonial authority figures were targeted, a car bomb almost killing the Chief of Police. The police decided to crack down on Triad activity and, in 1998, gang boss Broken Tooth Koi was arrested and charged with various criminal activities and sentenced to fifteen years in prison the following year.

Wo On Lok are no slouches either. On Sunday, 25 July 1999, a Chinese man died from multiple injuries after being attacked with a variety of weapons in Colchester. A fight had broken out between rival Triads, a car chase followed and the victim’s vehicle crashed on a roundabout, where he was murdered. It is believed that Wo On Lok was responsible. Indeed, much earlier, in
1991, Hong Kong businessman Lam Ying-Kit was shot four times after he tried to take over the Wo On Lok in the UK.

It is unclear which Triad was responsible for first importing heroin into Great Britain, although authorities believe it was originally transported from Hong Kong, via Amsterdam, by the Ng Sik-ho, and received by either the 14k or the recently arrived Wo Shing Wo, the original Wo group, which operated as the longest established Triad in Hong Kong. With corruption within the Hong Kong Police Force at an all time high, many of Hong Kong’s Triads turned to Great Britain where a narcotics task force was non-existent and their activities were largely unknown by British officials. It proved to be a perfect solution for the Triad gang masters.

During the 1980s, the power of the Chinese underworld was constantly shifting from one Triad to another in an attempt to control Britain’s drug trafficking trade. Triads soon began expanding into other criminal activities, including VAT fraud, using innocent loanshark and extortion victims to provide a business front. The Triads also began to eschew heroin as well, turning instead to less serious drugs such as cannabis and designer drugs, which were smuggled by Triad couriers from the Netherlands and Germany as they competed with rival European outfits.

Following the signing of the Joint Declaration between Great Britain and China in 1984, the news of Hong Kong’s return to China caused many Triads to flee to Great Britain. These newer Triads were far more organised and professional and, as many of its members were respected and prominent Hong Kong businessmen,
they were easily able to use their legitimate businesses as fronts for tax evasion and money laundering on a huge scale. The Wo On Lok soon established themselves in London and Southampton and, maintaining links to similarly exiled groups in Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Germany, they engaged in ‘lesser’ crime such as illegal gambling, counterfeiting and video piracy, although they also still continue extortion activities on Chinese residents.

British authorities finally woke up to the problem and began to crack down on Triad activity during the early 1990s and, although law enforcement had been battling the Triads for some time, their first insight into the Triad structure and influence on British society came during the 1933 trial of George Cheung Wai-hen, an assassin for the Wo On Lok, who had become a government informer. He testified at the Old Bailey against six Chinese immigrants who were charged with possession of a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Their target was the rival Triad member Lam Ying-Kit after a failed a failed attempt on his life on 7 September 1991.

According to Cheung’s testimony, he described his traditional induction ceremony into the Wo On Lok, which took place around 2.00am in the basement of the Princess Garden Restaurant in Greyhound Road, Fulham. During the ceremony, he claimed to have paid his sponsor and dai lo, actor Tan Wai-Ming, a fee of
£
36.60 to operate in Great Britain. As the result of his whistle-blowing, Cheung was given a reduced sentence of five years in jail.

Today, the authorities consider the Wo Shing Wo to be the largest Triad operating in the country. Although
largely based in Manchester, it also has affiliated groups in Birmingham, Glasgow and London and smaller groups in Bristol, Newcastle and Cardiff. Although members are recruited in the traditional manner, many members include prominent businessmen who either maintain links with the organisation for their own protection or act as full participants in their criminal activities. Although they abide by the territorial urban districts of other Triad organisations, often centred around a Chinese cultural club or martial arts association, they have been involved in extortion activities over an area as far scattered as Truro and Great Yarmouth.

14k Triad has seen a decline of its power since its appearance in the early 1950s, yet it still remains the oldest-established group in the underworld, and is still the second-largest Triad operating in the country. Based primarily in London and Liverpool, the 14k continues its traditional activities of loansharking and extortion of Chinese businesses, although they have also had a history of targeting other immigrant groups, such as Indian and Pakistani-run corner shops and small factories.

In terms of opposition to the Triads, the West Indian community has been more likely to report incidents of harassment and intimidation than its Asian counterpart, and with its own ethnic gangs to turn to, the West Indians are well able to put up stronger resistance, if not actually to retaliate themselves. Much of 14k is made up of teenagers or illegal Chinese immigrants, although there have been reports of non-Chinese members as well.

The San Yee On is an influential Triad organisation which, like its Hong Kong affiliates, is a highly organised criminal syndicate involved in white-collar crime. It also
owns legitimate businesses, specifically in the
entertainment
industry, which arranges concerts and theatrical plays from the Orient.

The San Yee On is an influential Triad organisation which, like its Hong Kong affiliates, is a highly organised criminal syndicate involved in white-collar crime. It also owns legitimate businesses, specifically in the entertainment industry which arranges concerts and theatrical plays from the Orient.

As late as 2005, the Gaming Board started to investigate allegations that Chinese gangsters had been using the Napoleon Club casino, at Queen’s House, in Leicester Square, London, which draws a significant proportion of its members from the Chinese and
south-east
Asian community living in nearby Chinatown. The gangsters were suspected of using the venue to launder vast sums of illicit cash from extortion, vice and
people-smuggling
operations.

Associated with the Triads, moneylenders carried large amounts of cash to loan to gamblers who had lost their stakes and wanted to carry on at the tables. As much as
£
25,000 was handed out in a single evening. If the loans were repaid using gaming chips or cheques drawn on casinos, these could be used to disguise the source of income, thus allowing drug and vice money to be laundered.

The Gaming Board’s investigation had come hard on the heels of a June 2004 inquest into the gunning down of money lender and Chinese illegal immigrant, You Yi He, who had been shot dead in broad daylight at 5pm, Tuesday, 3 June 2003, outside the Bar Room Bar (BRB), at 32 Gerrard Street, Westminster. He was hit in the
hand and the chest. The dead man had been a member of 14K as well as a long-standing member of Napoleon’s casino, where, according to staff, he was part of a team lending there regularly. Police learned that You Yi He lived with his brother in Mare Street, Hackney. A married man with two children, he had left them behind in the Fujian province of south-west China and entered the UK in 1997. No one has been arrested for the killing which was believed to have been carried out by the rival Snakeheads Triad.