Shadows Over Chinatown
By Ying Chan and Jerry Capeci
O N a March morning in 1991, as Peter Eng Wong was about to enter the third-floor office of his investment firm on teeming Canal St., a gunman crept up behind him and fired a single, fatal bullet to the back of his head.
To this day no one has been charged in the slaying. But nearly everyone in Chinatown knows who allegedly sent the killer.
They whisper that it was Wing Yeung Chan, the reputed dai lo dai (chief of chiefs) of the Ghost Shadows, the biggest, most vicious, most influential Chinese gang in New York, with a criminal empire as diverse as Chinatown's streets.
The killing of Wong, an official of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association, prevented him from testifying against Chan at a federal racketeering trial in Chicago two weeks later. Chan beat the rap, solidified his place at the helm of the Ghost Shadows, and attained worldwide clout. This fall, Chan will stand trial again, in Brooklyn Federal Court, on murder and racketeering charges. The case against him comes as record numbers of Chinatown gangsters are fingering their bosses. Corrupt, gang-linked cops have also been arrested, and at least one is cooperating.
For the first time, the identities of the masterminds behind the many murders that left the Chinese community awash in blood are emerging.
And the Daily News through FBI documents, court records, and interviews with law enforcement and underworld sources gained an unprecedented look into Chan's world.
Through his lawyer, Chan refused to discuss the charges.
But the interviews and documents reveal how Chan used violence to rule over rival Chinese gangs in constant turf feuds. The evidence lay in a trail of 30 killings of gangsters and bystanders since 1989. In the current federal indictment, Chan is accused of ordering three murders and conspiring to kill a fourth person.
The case is based largely on tape-recorded conversations between Chan and close associates in the Ghost Shadows, a gang that holds sway in Asian communities from Boston to New Orleans, all the way to China and Hong Kong.
"To wield the influence they do, there is an absolute necessity for them to generate fear," said Lewis Schiliro, the head of the FBI's criminal division. "Without the fear factor, the gangs are powerless." By all accounts, Chan's power base is the New York headquarters of the On Leong, a tong or fraternal organization with chapters in major U.S. cities.
It was across the street from this stately office building where Wong lay lifeless in a blood-spattered hallway. "Chan believed that Peter Eng Wong was a snitch," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Curran, as he outlined a litany of crimes that convinced Brooklyn Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser to detain Chan without bail.
The Leaders
After arriving from Canton, China, Chan began life in America as many immigrants do: He clerked in a grocery store. But a job sweeping up at one of Chinatown's many gambling parlors would eventually lead him to control them, and much more.
At 50, Chan still has "a lot of face" respectability in Chinatown, despite the lengthy indictment against him. An unassuming man of medium build, he sports wire-rimmed glasses, a gold watch and a ring with a quarter-sized jade stone. He favors slacks and sports jackets, and usually shuns ties.
He is a past national president of the On Leong tong and is still an official of the century-old organization. He owns a condo in Tribeca, is a family man and has four children, three of whom are in college.
Chan's many businesses include the 400-seat Harmony restaurant and banquet hall, where he often wined and dined visiting dignitaries from China and Taiwan.
But under the veneer of respectable community leader, FBI agents say, lies a ruthless crime boss who controls the Ghost Shadows with the help of his three brothers.
The youngest brother, Wing Lok Chan, 34, functions as a "street boss" who deals directly with several dai los crew chiefs who direct "young men" in their criminal ways.
In contrast to Chan, Wing Lok is a flashy bachelor who drives a Mercedes, enjoys booze and has a reputation as a lady's man, according to FBI documents.
Until he fled from unrelated murder and drug charges, Wing Lok lived in a $2,225-a-month East Side apartment that also served as a base for drug dealing and other rackets, according to FBI documents. Wing Lok hired a crane to hoist a huge fish tank a symbol of prosperity among Chinese immigrants into the window of the plush, 12th-floor pad, FBI documents say.
A third Chan brother, Wing Wah, 39, reputedly oversees the family's extensive gambling operations. After Chan retired as On Leong president, he orchestrated Wing Wah's succession "in order to continue the power of his family in the [On Leong tong]," said FBI agent Ronald Eichhorn. Wing Wah's reign ended last year, but he remains a top On Leong official.
The fourth brother, Wing Yip, 44, supplies the Ghost Shadows with guns bought in New Orleans, officials say.
Neither Wing Wah nor Wing Yip are facing charges, nor could they be reached for comment. The family matriarch still lives in the heart of Ghost Shadows turf, on Mulberry St. Her phone was wiretapped for a month.
According to one tape-recorded conversation, the mother said Wing Lok had complained to her that Chan was mistreating him, and he was especially upset that his older brother had "ordered him to stop drinking." Chan told his mother that he had warned his younger brother about drinking "with those guys from the street," and had tried to tell Wing Lok "to act [more] like the leader."
The Rackets
On streets jammed with tourists, fishmongers and souvenir sellers, the gang's touch is as invisible and pervasive as the exotic food aroma.
The gang has a hand in all that happens on Mott, Bayard, Mulberry and Canal Sts., all within two blocks of the 5th Precinct stationhouse. Its rackets range from penny ante to highly lucrative. The "young men" many of them boys as young as 13 extorted $ 5 lunches from restaurants while their dai lo dai fleeced millions of dollars from investors in a bogus international bullion trading company. They run betting parlors on Mott and Bayard that cater to Chinese businessmen and drug dealers, and wrench protection money from 75% of all the establishments in Chinatown. They control at least two companies that distribute fruits and vegetables to Chinese restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, earning pay-offs from the sales and using the firms to launder illegally obtained cash.
Using national On Leong connections, they run gambling operations in Boston, Houston and New Orleans, where they have a working arrangement with the Marcello Mafia family.
FBI agents and detectives on a joint FBI/NYPD Asian gang task force observe that young hoodlums eat lunch without paying, then walk outside and openly divvy up their just-obtained pay-off.
"It's relatively small potatoes, like pocket change that they keep for themselves, but we see it almost every day," said Schiliro.
These same "young men," earn between $ 400 and $ 500 a week to protect gambling patrons from robberies by rival gangs.
They keep guns in building lobby mailboxes for quick access.
On average, their dai lo earns up to $ 10,000 a week from a betting parlor owner, although some owners pay as much as $ 20,000 a week. Whatever the amount, the dai lo allegedly passes about 25% to dai lo dai Chan. At the same time, Chan allegedly rakes in millions in schemes like one in which 300 investors, mostly Asian immigrants, lost some $ 10 million.
With partners in Hong Kong and Los Angeles, Chan formed a Bermuda-based company that did business on Mott St. as the Evergreen Bullion Co., ostensibly to buy and sell gold, silver and currency on the open market.
Instead, Evergreen put all its investments in one account, gave customers phony records, provided phony trade confirmation slips and charged 7% commission for trades that never occurred.
"The Ghost Shadows are extremely opportunistic," said Schiliro. "When they see a way to make money, they will do it, whether it involves extorting, kidnaping, drug dealing or gambling. Anything they can do to make money they'll do, just like the Mafia."
The Murders
By 1988, Chan was firmly established in Chinatown, as Chun Siung Lam learned the hard way.
Lam, who operated a Bayard St. gambling parlor, was approached by gang members several times and told to pay "protection" money to the Ghost Shadows.
He refused, and on Feb. 11, 1989, as he walked up the stairs to his secondfloor gambling parlor, Lam was shot to death. Chan soon moved his own gambling operation into the same location.
In addition to the killings listed in the indictment, Chan and his Ghost Shadows are linked to many killings by rival gangs in the open warfare they waged in Chinatown, Brooklyn and Queens during the last five years. It was a war that Chan allegedly approved after brother Wing Lok was badly beaten by Tung On hoods in January 1992 during a brawl in the Triple 8 nightclub under the Manhattan Bridge.
Within days, Wing Lok allegedly killed a Tung On gang member on East Broadway.
Then, in a revenge attack by Tung On hoods on Feb. 28, Stuyvesant High School senior James Rou a bystander was gunned down in a Greenwich Village pool room. Accused Tung On dai lo dai Paul Lai is charged with Rou's murder, and trial is set for the fall.
Despite outrage over Rou's killing, the violence continued unabated. On July 12, 1992, Ghost Shadows dai lo Gum Pai and several cohorts robbed and beat up Flying Dragons leader Shui Bao on Mulberry St. A week later, Chan, his brother Wing Lok and six other Ghost Shadows, drove to a Rego Park, Queens, bowling alley for peace talks. They were surrounded by 20 Flying Dragons; Wing Lok was stabbed, another Ghost Shadow shot to death.
The killing was necessary, according to FBI informers, because Shui Bao "had lost face with other members of the Flying Dragons."
The Bayard St. Boys
The hard-drinking, money-hungry members of the Bayard St. Boys branch of the Ghost Shadows were fiercely loyal to their dai lo, Robin Chee.
At the behest of the 35-year-old Chee whose current whereabouts are unknown gang members used guns, knives and baseball bats in maintaining an iron grip on their turf.
And in some instances, they craftily used the law to their own end.
On Jan. 24, 1992, three Bayard St. Boys ripped off six Dominicans for $ 100,000 in a bogus heroin deal in Jackson Heights, Queens.
One of the Shadows fled; the Dominicans kidnaped the other two and demanded the money back.
But shortly after the kidnap victims relayed the demand, cops rescued them. The Dominicans were arrested on drug and kidnaping charges.
Authorities say Chee's right-hand man, Kenny Wong, tipped 5th Precinct police.
A few months later, Wong and Chee celebrated the ruse in New Orleans, where they picked up $ 16,000 in proceeds from a gambling parlor they operated under an agreement with the Mafia.
Chee, like many of his 15 to 20 "boys," uses cocaine to keep sharp and awake, he says in calls wiretapped by the FBI.
He benevolently provided speedy legal services when his boys were arrested doing his bidding. But when they freelanced, his temper was explosive.
"You guys fucked up. You are in trouble. You know you're not supposed to touch them," Chee screamed at two underlings who robbed a gambling parlor protected by the Flying Dragons. The Dragons had retaliated and robbed a Ghost Shadows' concern of $ 100,000.
The boys marked each Chinese New Year by "selling" Mandarin orange trees, an extortion scheme that reaps lavish tributes from restaurants and other businesses.
Those businesses owned by members of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association, the Ghost Shadows' legitimate front, were exempt.
"All of them, do not collect money," Chee instructed gang member John Lau on Jan. 15, 1993. "You remember, those places do not collect."