How The Triads (Hong Kong Mafia) Actually Work | How Crime Works

"Jimmy Tsui is my name. I go by the moniker Bighead. I formerly held a senior position in Sun Yee On, the largest triad. After growing weary of living it and coming dangerously close to death in 1992, I made the decision to end my life. I was wounded five times. Do I recognize the shooter? Yes, I am aware of the shooter. However, I'm not sure why he shot me at the time. In Hong Kong, how many triads exist? There are many triads, I can assure you of that. Shing Wo, Sun Yee On, 14K, and Shui Fong. Because I'm not in Hong Kong, my position is a little unique. I'm a New York native. And I already have a ton of stuff in New York.And in New York, I already have a lot of soldiers under me. When I joined the Tung On gang in Chinatown, New York, a couple of former members in Tung On, they are from Hong Kong. When they in Hong Kong, they already are triad. Sun Yee On members. So after they come to the United States, they still have a connection with a Hong Kong triad. Because some things happened, I got arrested on ... 1985. I remember. So, after I got out, the couple of members I mentioned before from Sung Yee On, they asked me, "Hey, Jimmy, you want to go to Hong Kong with us? Maybe you can go outside and have some fun first because you were already inside for two years." I went back to Hong Kong with them. They took me to a restaurant, and told me wait over there. And then afterward, a guy come down, but he didn't look like a triad leader, nothing. He looked like a businessman. They never mentioned this guy is the leader, OK? So the leader asked me a couple of questions, like, "What you do in New York? What's your position in New York?" And I tell him the whole thing. So he's saying that, because I already have a lot of soldiers on my under level, all the kids who follow me, they will become a Sun Yee On too. For the ceremony, there's a incense altar on the table. We have to swear a lot to God or something, and we had to drink blood wine. And then the first thing, they were saying that — I will speak in Cantonese because I don't know how to translate in English that one. The rule for the triad, the main rule is you obey your boss, of course. You obey your main boss. There's only one main boss for the whole group, so you must obey him. And never against each other, and never steal money from each other, and never lie to each other, and never take girl from each other. My boss give me, as I remember, two, two nightclubs to collect money every month, which they call protection money. The shareholders must be, like, one or two shareholders for the nightclub is our member. In America, you can say that's extortion, but they'd be willing to give out money for the protection in America. But in Hong Kong, you must be a shareholder for this nightclub, and then you have your own people to protect the club. I tell you — honestly, I tell you — we are there every night, at least 20 days a month. We got used to it, just like going to work. Just, like, every day about time, we were like, OK, let's go to this nightclub tonight, let's go to that nightclub tonight. Every night is like that. That's the gang life. For me, I got two nightclubs to collect. Every nightclub, they give me 20 grand each month. So a month, I get, like, 40 grand, without doing something, for two small nightclubs. But for the big ones, as I know, they pay, like, 100 grand a month for each general. Back then, the triad business always production company, bowling alley. That's a legal business. And for the underground business, maybe money laundering, maybe drug money. They have business right here, in United States. In New York, in LA. They have business all over. Back then, I can say, every gang in Chinatown, they have connections in Hong Kong. They all have connections in Hong Kong. The generals from the other group, they start a business of drug trafficking. Back then, it's very easy to smuggle the drugs into United States. Maybe they have some girl member in the gang. They tell the girl to go back to Hong Kong and pick up something and bring it back in. At that time, it's very easy. It's not like right now. When the time I'm in Hong Kong, the movie business, I can say that is all controlled by triad. If you don't listen to triad, you cannot get the spot. Not even a spot. You don't listen to them, you will get punished. There's a movie star come out saying that, like, "I'm not a triad," whatever. You believe them? You believe them. OK. But for me, I don't believe them. A lot of famous movie stars which is female, they are triad members. A lot of people don't know. And we know. Every gangster got a nickname because we don't want to use our real name on the street. Easy to remember. I got big head, and my name's Jimmy. It's too simple. A lot of people are called Jimmy. So they won't forget, they always called me Bighead Jimmy. They have a nickname for monkey. They have a nickname for "tiger boy," "fat boss." They have all kind of nickname. They have all different kind of handshake, like different position. They have different kind of handshake. Sometimes you do this, and then you show with your hand sign, and then they know what's your position. Maybe the guy who you're talking to is a soldier, and then you show him the hand sign is, you are a general, and then he don't know what is general hand sign because he's only a soldier, so he only can show the soldier hand sign. So if I saw it, you're only a soldier, I don't want to talk to you. Tell your boss to come out, like this. They don't use that no more. Only the old generation. The generation after the 2000s, they don't care. They don't care about this. They just care how many people you have, what kind of power you have, how much you got. In Hong Kong, I'll never go out with myself. If I go to this nightclub, at least 20, 30 people will follow me, go into nightclub. So they knew. They knew you're triad. We got experience. We can tell who's a triad, who's a cop, and who's a businessman. We can tell. For triads, they have a couple levels. But for Sun Yee On, the members on the top level, they are all controlled by one family. No other people can take their position. Every generation, they will pass down, like father and son, son and son, like this. So it's all controlled by one family until now. After the top level, the second level is the general. We call it 426. After the 426 is the soldier. For the soldier, they call it 49. And after the soldier, that's the people who hang out with the soldier every day, but they are not a member yet. They call it blue lantern. This is the main structure of the triad. Of course, they have a lot of different positions, like white paper fan. That's the guy who controls all the money. There's another position that's for passing out the message. A special guy doing that. Now, at this century, a lot of position is gone. So only got left is the top level, general, the soldier, and the blue lantern. I only saw my boss in Hong Kong two or three times. But I know his family members. When I get to the general position, the boss will give you a couple places, like, couple of business places, for you to collect money every month. That's our salary. I just make sure they are doing the right thing, they don't step out of the line. And that's what I did. If somebody step out of the line, OK, there's so many people in the group. So many people. Always, things happen, because you cannot control everybody. I never did that before, but what I heard, the worst thing, they got killed. That's the worst. If they did something against the company, against the group, they will get killed. After me, I have a couple of soldiers — they are in the group for a long time, they have experience — who control all the kids. They are doing all the management. So this thing won't happen. But sometimes in the other groups, this thing did happen. That's what I heard. Hong Kong's really small, and too many triad members. They all have their own district. Like, you control this part, and 14K controls the other part. But you know how the gangster is. They always want to increase their power. So they step in the district that's controlled by the Sun Yee On, and the war is gonna start. When I was in Hong Kong, I saw another general in Sun Yee On, they have something going on with a general in 14K. They start a war. They want to take their territory. Yeah, I saw that before. But this always happened in Hong Kong back then. Back then, in Hong Kong, they always start a war, but they don't use guns. They always use knife, because in Hong Kong the firearm law is really strict. Even though they have a gun, they're hardly going to bring the gun outside on the street. Almost impossible for people to get a gun license in Hong Kong. When the time I was in Hong Kong, who used the guns, always the gangsters from China, from mainland China. They bring the gun from China, then they use it in Hong Kong, and then they ran back to China. But for the original members in Hong Kong, they hardly use the gun. OK, maybe the lower-lower-level guy, but not the general. And if a fight starts, we don't get involved, only the soldiers who start the fight. If we saw something and we know the war going to start, we back off, and then the soldier forward. Different triad members, they are together doing something, yes, always. It's money talks. Easy, it's money talks. If one general, he thinks he cannot take the whole cake and he want to share out with another member or share out with different group, he will do that. Hong Kong is real small, I tell you. So you have to friend with other groups too. Back then, in Hong Kong prison or Macau's prison, the whole prison is run by the triad. The triad got more power than the correctional officer. In the '60s and '70s, all the police was corruption, and with the triad. They worked together. Until now, no. Impossible. You can't. It is very strict right now. You do something they don't like, you will disappear forever, and people cannot find you. And you are not facing jail time, you just disappear. I decided to quit my gangster life. I got shot five times, and after that, I said, "No more." I got sick and tired of that, because I'm getting old. The way I think is different. So I want to return to my normal life, so I quit. I know the person who shot me, but I don't know why he shot me at that time. Afterward, I found out. Because my soldier, under me, people under me shot their member two weeks ago. So they know I'm the general of them. So he shot me. At that time, I was at home, and I ran out of cigarettes. So I have to go down and try to buy a cigarette in the grocery. When I closed my driver's-side door and I check out the side mirror, I saw someone came out from a car behind, and then he started to shoot. And then the ambulance come, like, after at least 15 minutes, as I remember. They brought me to the Elmhurst Hospital, and they do a surgery, and then the doctor come by and showed me all the bullets and tell me that, "We took four bullets out, and there's still a bullet inside your body." So I asked him, "Why don't you just take the last one out?" And he was telling me that, "Because that bullet is running into your bone, so that bullet's going to stay there forever." That's what the doctor says. What do I have to do to leave? Actually, nothing. I just tell my soldiers. Because I have couple of soldiers, who control all the kids already. I just tell them that, starting now, all the street money, the gambling house money, whatever, I'm going to give up everything. You guys take care of the under-level people, and anything happens, you don't have to ask me. Even though after I left, I start working, and the FBI come to me, ask me questions. I say, "I don't know nothing. I left already." In the '90s, the FBI, all the leaders, all the gangsters got arrested and thrown in the prison. Without our help, they cannot stand in the United States no more, and then they back off and now disappear. The first beginning of triad, we call it a tong, Hung Mun. Hung Mun is the first one. After that, they split out from Hung Mun to all separate triads. They call it triad for the three big rivers in the southeast area. So inside that area, they call everybody a triad. Government people, they call them triad. And then they start to call themselves triad too. Sun Yee On in Hong Kong is the largest triad almost in all the Southeast Asian area. At my time, they have, like, 200,000 members, and all over the world. They have a pretty long history. For all the high-level members in Sun Yee On, they become a businessman now. They doing legit business. All undergrounding is only for the lower-level members. I was born in 1965 in Hong Kong. I born in the district called Yau Ma Tei. Inside Yau Ma Tei, there's a street called Temple Street. At that time, the whole street is controlled by the triad. So when I was real young, I already know what is triad. And my father saw, like, I'm getting worse, my behavior's getting worse. So he decide to immigrate the whole family to the United States. At that time, there's a gang called Ghost Shadows in Chinatown. Always waiting outside the school every day, like after school. They try to do something to us and try to scare us and tell us to join the gang. If we don't, we have to pay them money every day for protection, but we keep refusing them. One of my classmates, he told us that we should go look for his cousin, Clifford Wong, and he's the leader of the Tung On gang. My classmate got killed because the Flying Dragons, they thought my friend belonged to the Tung On gang, but which at that time we are not. So we asked Clifford Wong for help, and he said, "Why don't guys just join our gang?" So officially we joined the Tung On gang. I start as Tung On gang member when I'm 14. When I become a member of Sun Yee On, I'm 22. So I was already in the gang life for, like, eight years already. We have a channel on YouTube, Chinatown Gang Stories. We started telling the true story about gangster life. We want to do the best we can to find every former gangster member, no matter what level they are, to tell their true story, so that the world knows what the gangster life is. I just want to say that, for the new generation, don't trust anybody except your parents. Don't trust any movie story. You are not a hero in the gang life. If you're really in the gang life right now, only two final ways out. First, you gonna end up in the prison, doing time. Second, you're going to get killed.”