by Martin Booth
‘Chasing the dragon’ needs little equipment: it is not a luxurious pastime like smoking opium with a jade or ivory pipe. The addict places heroin on a metal surface – a piece of tin can, for example – and heats this over a flame such as a cigarette lighter. As the heroin melts it gives off fumes which are inhaled through a rolled-up paper tube, the ‘dragon chased’ being the fumes which waft in the air supposedly like a flying dragon’s tail. If an open matchbox cover is used instead of a tube, the addict is said not to be chasing the dragon but ‘playing the mouth-organ’. Some addicts smoked their heroin mixed with barbiturate and added to a tobacco cigarette: as the heroin came in bursts every few puffs, this method was known as ‘shooting the ack-ack gun’.
With mainland Chinese opium supplies drying up in the wake of the Communist take-over, the Chiu Chau expanded their operations and moved into the drug market in Bangkok, operating from within the Chiu Chau community in Thailand. As with most ethnic Chinese groups, there is a strong sense of loyalty amongst expatriate communities. By 1965, they owned a total monopoly over opiates entering and leaving Hong Kong and a virtual monopoly over heroin manufacture, domestic sale and exportation. Since 1972, they have been primarily responsible, with other Triad groups, for most of the South-east Asian heroin reaching Europe and North America: they were, and remain, the force behind the Golden Triangle trade, making them the most powerful players in the market.
Official Hong Kong government figures recorded 80–100,000 drug addicts in the early 1970s from a population of four million: 60,000 were listed as heroin addicts but the estimate is probably conservative. According to DEA statistics in 1972, Hong Kong had 120,000 heroin and 30,000 opium addicts consuming virtually the equivalent amount for all addicts in the USA. It was the highest per capita addiction rate in the world.
So numerous were addicts it was not uncommon to see them. The author, as a child in Hong Kong in the early 1950s, recalls watching rickshaw coolies smoking opium with a pipe or heroin off a tin spoon held over a small lamp in the alleys off Canton Road, within 100 yards or so of the Peninsula Hotel, then the most extravagant and luxurious in the world. They were gaunt men, their sinews taut and muscles bunched by their employment, their skin like parchment. Virtually every one had a sunken chest and prominent ribs: some had faces like newly-dead skulls. Once they had had their pipe, they lay down on the pavement or between the shafts of their rickshaw and slept like corpses. For many, opium or heroin was the only way by which they could face the pain and effort of pulling a laden rickshaw in the subtropical heat. Most addicts were those involved in heavy physical labour such as working in quarries, on construction sites or at the docks: 60 per cent of dock labourers were addicted and used two-thirds of their wages chasing dragons. Most of the commonly seen addicts were street sleepers who lived in doorways, under bridges, huddled in alleys or on open ground. They were almost all male.
The dragon chasers obtained their supplies quite openly. Dealers were to be seen on the streets and some urban areas of Hong Kong even had their own heroin dens. These were not like the opium dens of old but just meeting places where smokers could buy their heroin and smoke it in the company of peers. Many were attached to tea houses or mahjong gambling clubs, the latter being Triad owned and technically illegal but allowed for their cultural importance. The addiction rate being so high, however, prompted the Hong Kong police to run a concerted drive against narcotics in the mid-1960s. The trade was driven out of sight but not otherwise much affected for the Chiu Chau syndicates had contacts and were wealthy. Police bribery was rampant, reaching even to European officers on the force. The level of corruption was maintained until 1974, when the Hong Kong government organised the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) which cleaned up first the police then other government departments which were also riddled with sleaze.
The Hong Kong police and customs service were still finding it nigh on impossible to apprehend smugglers, apart from being hampered by corruption. Until around 1968, morphine base and opium shipments from Thailand were brought in hidden in the cargoes of coastal commercial freighters. After that, Thai fishing fleets were used, often showing on US Navy radar watching the Gulf of Siam and the South China Sea as part of the Vietnam War defences, but they could not be stopped. The drugs were landed on tiny islands – Hong Kong contains over 230 islands – or along the coast of China, concealed under rocks, buried in the sand or dropped offshore to be collected later by Chinese inshore fishing and trading junks which took them on to Hong Kong. This route continued until it was closed in 1975 by the new government of Thailand acting under pressure from the DEA and Washington: once more, foreign aid was ransomed.
Flushed by their successes in South-east Asia, the Chiu Chau Triads expanded. Heroin was smuggled into the USA from Hong Kong on scheduled air flights, the couriers often taking roundabout routings to disguise their origin. In 1969, a Filipino network was founded running heroin to the American Mafia via South and Central America: within three years, another was working through the Caribbean. The heroin was flown to Chile on scheduled passenger flights, the country having a sizeable Chinese population. From Santiago, it was taken to isolated landing strips and smuggled into Paraguay by private light aircraft. Paraguay was then the major transit centre for heroin heading north to America, from both the Far East and Europe, whence it arrived by sea through Argentina. About 70 per cent of America’s heroin travelled this route, the remaining 30 per cent going by way of Mexico or Panama.
The narcotics traffic was superbly organised and the Triads, their members bound by powerful oaths, were largely beyond infiltration. In 1971, the trade was being headed in Hong Kong by just five Chiu Chau Triad leaders, of whom Ma Sik-yu (aka White Powder Ma), his younger brother, Ma Sik-chun (aka Golden Ma) and Ng Sik-ho (aka Limpy Ho) were considered the most important.
The Ma brothers were to become more than heroin dealers. Ma Sik-yu began in business in 1967, journeying to the Golden Triangle to purchase his heroin supplies at source, having them smuggled to Hong Kong on his behalf. The next year, General Li Wen-huan met him and, taking a personal liking to him and seeing Ma might be of use to the KMT cause, introduced him to several Taiwanese intelligence agents. By 1970, Ma was running a spy network of informants throughout Chinese communities in South-east Asia who reported on Communist activity and any other intelligence Taiwan might use against China. Ma was the linchpin of the organisation, passing collected data on during regular trips to Taiwan: meantime, Ma Sik-chun founded what was to become the most pro-Taiwanese newspaper in Hong Kong. In exchange for this patriotic service, General Li give them a discount on their heroin for which, it is said, the Taiwanese government made up the loss in armaments.
By 1974, the Mas were the biggest drug barons Hong Kong had ever known. They diverted much of their profits into legitimate businesses such as restaurants, property, trading companies, bars and cinemas. Ma Sik-yu was elected a member at the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club (the pinnacle of respectability) whilst Ma Sik-chun was active in socialite circles. A nephew, Ma Woon-yin, became their third partner and bag-man, carrying money overseas for laundering. With the drop in heroin demand in South-east Asia after the post-Vietnam War departure of the American armed forces, the Mas knew they had to spread their product base so they established an international network for heroin and started liaising with the American Mafia and Japanese organised crime syndicates. With the Hong Kong police closing in, Ma Sik-yu fled to Taiwan in February 1977. Ma Sik-chun and Woon-yin were arrested but subsequently jumped a ridiculously low bail of HK$200,000 each (about £15,000 at the time) and also headed for Taiwan. They reside there to this day, allegedly still controlling a sizeable criminal syndicate although they have not dealt in heroin since 1983 when one of their king-pin traffickers was apprehended by the Hong Kong authorities. Their legitimate businesses continue to flourish in Hong Kong. Taiwan has consistently refused to consider any extradition proceedings.
The only real rival to the Mas was
Ng Sik-ho. His criminal career began by his selling No. 3 heroin from a street fruit stall. From this he graduated to a tea house and a rice shop, both fronts for laundering money and selling heroin. His wife was also an experienced dealer. With a flair for business, he set up several heroin partnerships, funding these with loans from other Triad gangsters and legitimate businessmen who saw the chance for a quick and potentially substantial profit. He purchased opium and morphine base from Thailand, converted it into No. 3 heroin for the local market, then re-refined any left over into No. 4, which was exported. By 1970, the profits accruing from the business were estimated to be £15–20 million per annum. He employed over 1000 people, lived in a stylish mansion in Kowloon, owned four restaurants, an illegal gambling casino and numerous street stalls. He had over 150 police officers in his pocket (including at least one senior European officer) and founded the Hong Kong Precious Stone Company which ostensibly imported gemstones from Thailand but, in fact, imported opium as well as gems and acted as a money laundromat.
Ng was the first of the Chinese gangsters to deal directly with the American Mafia whom he met on several occasions in Japan. His arrogance, however, scared them off and they avoided direct contact with him thereafter: it was at this point the Mas more successfully followed his example. Undaunted by this set-back, he built up a heroin network through the Netherlands, distributing his product across Europe and on to the USA, sometimes using as couriers US servicemen in Germany who were themselves dealers.
The end was near, though. In 1972, Ng’s empire started to fall apart. Seven hundred kilograms of raw opium and 80 kilograms of morphine base were found in a tunnel connected to a block of flats rented by Ng and on a duck farm owned by a close associate. His casinos were busted. He moved to Taiwan to escape implication in the murder of a double-crosser but, on legal advice, he returned to Hong Kong and was duly arrested for murder, but the charge did not stick. However, after this set-back, he was grassed by another Triad: his arrogance and flashy life-style infuriated other gangsters who preferred to keep their heads down. It is also said the Mas assisted the police in building up their dossier on Ng, passing information through officers whom they owned: like Ng, they had a large number of bent officers at their beck and call. Ng was at last arrested by an untainted, hand-picked police narcotics squad and sentenced to thirty-five years in May, 1975: his wife got sixteen years. In 1992, he was given bail on compassionate grounds, because he was suffering from liver cancer, and died early in 1993.
Not only criminals were in on the game: so were some Hong Kong police officers who were Triad gangsters themselves. In particular five sergeants, actually members of the police Triad Bureau, were involved in receiving massive kickbacks from gambling, vice and narcotics. The central figure of this group was Sergeant Lui Lok who was nicknamed ‘$600 Million Man’. This was no mere moniker: it was a conservative guess at his wealth for, between them, the five had received hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars.
When, in November 1974, the ICAC began to close in on them, they decamped from Hong Kong to Vancouver which already had a substantial Chinese immigrant population and was a conduit for heroin entering Canada. Once settled, they established the Five Dragons Corporation, their most prominent purchase being a Vancouver office block in the heart of the financial centre, for which they paid C$60 million – in cash. Such extravagance inevitably aroused suspicion and the corporation folded with the key figures flying to Taiwan. There were by then over forty ex-Hong Kong police officer millionaires in exile on the island: one of their number, a much-admired career policeman called Tang Sang, had escaped there by forfeiting a HK$330,000 bail.
Those who did not make for Canada or run for Taiwan headed for the USA. The most famous was Chan Tse-chiu (aka Fast Eddie). He arrived in New York in the winter of 1975, where he joined the On Leong Triad society and invested his money in legitimate businesses, such as a jewellery shop, several restaurants and (ironically) an undertakers. In time, he came to run Chinatown, expanding his tentacles into political circles (including giving donations to election campaigns: one his protégés stabbed himself to death during an anti-corruption investigation), buying off police officers, founding a bank, purchasing a string of cinemas and becoming president of the Continental King Lung Commodities Group, which was a suspected major Triad money-laundering business. By 1983, Chan was allegedly a central figure in the importation of heroin.
In October 1984, Chan was subpoenaed to appear before a commission on organised crime: he did not show up. Testimony put down by the authorities outlined his considerable legal and illegal activities. By November, he was missing although his legitimate businesses were still functioning normally. Guesses as to his whereabouts were legion. The DEA believed he had set up a heroin network in France, the New York Police Department thought he was in the Dominican Republic, the Hong Kong authorities suggested he divided his time between Taiwan and Canada whilst the Dutch claimed he was running a crime syndicate in Malaysia. He remains untraced.
The ICAC purge of police corruption destroyed the syndicates’ protection, without which they could not operate effectively. No. 4 heroin entering the USA dropped off for a short while but the syndicates were not beaten: they merely moved their chemists elsewhere. Hong Kong ceased to be a major manufacturing centre for heroin: instead, it became the financial centre for the South-east Asian drugs trade. The considerable affluence of Hong Kong, its huge mercantile base and its array of international and offshore banks made it an ideal money laundering centre – which it remains.
The Chiu Chau syndicates moved to Thailand and Malaysia. Here, they were closer to the opium source of the Golden Triangle, were aided by corruption, could obtain their supplies by land (avoiding well guarded border crossings and airport customs controls) and had the jungle in which to hide their refineries. They also moved to Europe where they based themselves in the large Chinese community in Amsterdam which developed into the main importation and distribution hub, assisted by lenient application of Dutch narcotics laws. By the start of the 1980s, heroin addiction was a major problem in Western Europe.
In part, the Chiu Chau success was unwittingly engineered by the international narcotics agencies. The Hong Kong production of heroin had been largely side-lined, the US Bureau of Narcotics concentrating its attention on the French Connection and ignoring the likes of the Mas and Ng. Despite this, there were some international law enforcement successes against the Chinese. One of these was the taking of the Corset Gang.
Operating out of Hong Kong, the gang was caught in 1967 by international police co-operation. Hired by the Hong Kong Chiu Chau Triads, the gang was masterminded by several retired Australian policemen. The couriers were also predominantly Australian. The heroin was smuggled, as the gang name implies, in specially tailored corsets or vests. Using a set of duplicate passports to disguise their origins, the couriers flew from Sydney to Hong Kong, where they collected the heroin, then flew on via London or other European cities to New York. In six months, they smuggled $22.5 million worth of heroin which was delivered into the Mafia distribution system.
Even then, it took another successful syndicate bust in 1970 and the horrendous addiction of GIs in Vietnam before the US Bureau of Narcotics turned its attention to the South-east Asian heroin trade and admitted the connection between the American Mafia and the Triad gangs.
Another criminal group was also becoming involved in the distribution of South-east Asian heroin: they were the Yakuza, Japan’s equivalent of the Triads. Dating back 300 years, the Yakuza are famous for their tattoos and infamous for slicing off part of a finger as an aspect of their initiation rites or as a punishment to anyone transgressing their code. In the 1920s and 1930s, Yakuza gangs played a part in Japan’s opium policy in Manchuria and China. They were also instrumental in importing Japanese morphine – known as ‘cotton morphine’ on account of its appearance – into the USA early in the 1930s, later supplying drug rings on the west coast with heroin. Pearl Harbour brought
to an end that enterprise. During the Second World War, the Yakuza set up supplying illicit amphetamines to Japanese civilians and military personnel. They now monopolise this market, with at least 50 per cent of their income reckoned to be drug-related. After the war, with the American presence in Japan, the CIA employed the Yakuza to spy on left-wing politicians. To this day, the gangsters are a political power to be reckoned with in Japan.
Around 1970, the Yakuza began to expand from being primarily a Japanese domestic criminal fraternity into an international one. They exploited the potential of the Pacific Rim, smuggling and dealing in drugs and arms, and investing heavily in the sex trade. They also linked up with the Triads and are now globally connected wherever there is an ethnic Japanese community. By 1972, they were establishing themselves in the USA. They first set up shop in Hawaii, moved to Los Angeles, then on to San Francisco and New York.
They were not slow in connecting with the Mafia but again it was some years before law enforcement agencies realised what was going on. Yet in May 1979, three Yakuza couriers were to be caught in Honolulu, carrying heroin disguised in duty-free cigarette cartons. It was discovered through passport checks that the couriers had made sixteen trips to Bangkok and twelve journeys to Hawaii, Guam and San Francisco. When Japanese police raided their homes in Tokyo, a curious code of behaviour for smugglers was discovered which, in part, read:
You should obey whatever you are told to do by your group leader. You have no choice, you cannot refuse or complain of the leader’s instructions. The above instructions are given at the request of the financier in order to protect ourselves and to accomplish our work … You must pay for your souvenirs yourself. Your leader will pay for your hotel and three meals. He will also pay for your drinks, up to $75.
Faced with the political, geographical and logistical problems of reducing poppy growing and the opium trade within the Golden Triangle, the DEA had decided to attack international trafficking. A large South-east Asian regional force of DEA intelligence gathering agents targeted drug shipments and, by 1975, South-east Asian heroin smuggling to the USA was cut by two-thirds. With the French Connection also severed, addiction rates in the USA fell from an estimated 500,000 addicts in 1971 to 200,000 in 1974. To counteract the heroin shortage on the street, Mexican poppy growers, who had accounted for about 35 per cent of the available heroin in the USA, increased their market share to about 90 per cent by 1975. Poppy fields proliferated in the Sierra Madre Mountains of central Mexico and, to a lesser extent, in Colombia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, but the heroin was of poor quality.