A lavish feast to signify the reemergence of the 14K Triad in Macau will have ripple effects in B.C.

As the final touches were being put to the River Rock casino resort in Richmond B.C's latest gaming complex a lavish banquet was held in Macau attracting Asia's A-list of tycoons and Triad bosses.

Broken Tooth Koi and his wife

Local reports said, the banquet's high-powered turnout reflected the support influential figures have given Chau, in his efforts to enlist 3,000 members of the 14K Triad for an underground police force.

The gangster-cops' primary role is to deal with the violent and unruly gangs in Macau.

On an international scale, Asian Organised Crime investigators said the 14K and their affiliates will use casinos around the globe for loan sharking, money laundering and a host of others signature organized crime activities.

While police have expressed concern about the potential rise in Asian organized crime related activities with B.C.'s ever expanding gaming policies, unlike in Macau there is no direct-link between the Chinese-mafia and local casino operators.

They are simply going to be places where these fellas will operate in and operate from, said a B.C.-based gang-squad detective.

By and large the casino operators here do a credible job in helping us track and keep out the bad element, he said.

But the gangs and their connections are active.

As for the 14K, a U.S. government study on the scope of Asian organized crime in Canada released last year said the Chinese Mafia gang is the fastest growing Triad group in Canada.

14K's global network has allowed it to steal credit card data from all over the world, including the United States and Canada, by installing magnetic recorders in credit card terminals, the U.S. report to Congress stated.

The 14K has a well established cell in Toronto while individual chapters operate autonomously across North America.

One police estimate puts the number of active 14K members in Canada at about 160.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service estimates the 14K triad, has a membership of more than 20,000 operating internationally.

Asian organized crime experts said the reemergence of the 14K in Macau will have ripple effects in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.

No one disputes that B.C. casinos especially the larger ones are a magnet for an assortment of criminals with extensive international connections.

Some come there to make money, some come there to hide money and some come there to wash money.

Scores of them like Lower Mainland residents Kwok Tam, who had his picture taken with former B.C. premier Glen Clark to show off to his buddies, Betty Big Sister Yan, a prolific loan shark according to police reports and others with nicknames like Stupid Ricky and Black Ghost Ming are on casino blacklists.

Yan, for instance is a mother of a two-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl. She has been on the police radar ever since she landed in Vancouver in 1995 to claim refugee status.

A police officer familiar with her file said the 34-year-old Chinese citizen is connected to the Big Circle Boys Triad and the 14K.

She was ordered out of the country in 2000.

As she fights the deportation order on humanitarian grounds, Yan has been seen at casino parking lots in her Mercedes Benz operating what Vancouver police say is a ruthless and violent loan sharking operation taking everything from citizenship cards to furniture as collateral.

Vancouver police recently appealed to her victims to come forward but very few have dared.

According to police intelligence files, the Richmond resident, who has claimed to be a spy for China's Ministry of State Security, was present when loanshark Pretty Boy Meng,was gunned down in a Richmond restaurant in 1988 and was in the house when underworld figure Tommy Wong, 43, was shot to death during a home invasion in Richmond on September 15, 2002.

More recently, before Vancouver police went public with her information, Yan had offered to help the RCMP and Immigration Canada get her one-time acquaintance Lai Changxing" China's most wanted man who is seeking refugee status in Canada - out of the country in exchange for landed status.

Police say like Yan, they know of at least 20 loan sharks operating around Lower Mainland casinos charging interest rates of between five percent for day loans to 15 per cent a week.

The Lisboa Casino - Macau's grandest landmark

This rivalry has already spilled over to the Lower Mainland.

In the late 1990s, gun battles, fire bombings and knife fights between and among 14K members and other gangs killed more than 30 people in Macau. The triads fought for control over casino VIP rooms, their primary money spinner, and the blood ran so thick in the streets that the police could only try to reassure tourists by saying the triads were sure-shooting professionals, Eastweek Magazine reported.

The gang war resulted in Macau triads turning back intruding gangs from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, but it went too far when they started targeting the Portuguese colonial authorities.

Several gaming and police officials met violent ends but after a car bomb almost killed the head of the criminal-investigation branch, 14K boss Broken Tooth was nabbed inside the Hotel Lisboa and finally jailed.

Present at the June 1st banquet organized by the jailed gang boss' brother-in-law known as the The Crown were Broken Tooth's mother and sister.

They sat at a corner surrounded by seven or eight tables of 14K foot soldiers.

One of the family's arch-rivals is Tong Sang Lai who slipped into Canada and now lives not too far away from Canada's largest poker room in Richmond.

Tong is listed in Asian organized crime files as the head of the Shiu Fong Triad which had been engaged in a bloody gangland war with the 14K.

At the height of the war in the mid-nineties, Shui Fong thugs out to kill Broken Tooth sent letters to Macau news outlets.

Warning, it read. From this day on it is forbidden to mention Broken Tooth Koi in the press; otherwise bullets will have no eyes, and knives and bullets will have no feelings. As he lost the war for control of the casinos in Macau, Tong plotted his escape from Macau.

He initially applied for landed immigrant status at the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong in early 1994. He was denied because of his crime links.

Two years later in a major security breach, Tong was granted landed immigrant status after he went visa shopping at the Canadian consulate in Los Angeles.

He bought a house on Fraserview Drive in Southeast Vancouver for $515,000 and equipped it with closed-circuit TV cameras.

Not long after his arrival, rival gangsters who themselves were running elaborate drug trafficking, loan sharking, illegal gambling and extortion rackets in the Lower Mainland tried to kill him.

Tong, a police source said, moved away from the house and now maintains a low profile in Richmond. He continues to travel between Macau and Vancouver.

The case led to an inquiry by Immigration Canada which said Tong was allowed into Vancouver because of an isolated slip by honest, overworked employees at the Canadian diplomatic mission in Los Angeles.

A RCMP investigation, however, uncovered widespread security problems at the consulate in Los Angeles.

In a memo obtained by The Asian Pacific Post, a senior RCMP officer said the Immigration Canada investigation was done with a carpet-sweeping approach.

Whether the reemergence of the 14K bodes bad tidings for Tong remains to be seen.

Before Broken Tooth was jailed, he used to have the Chong Son Sports Club, a hangout for his gang members in Macau.

The recent banquet by his brother-in-law, described as an unprecedented event for the Chinese underworld, was held to mark the opening of the new Heng Son Sports Club.

Eastweek reported that on the morning of the banquet, the Heng Son Sports Club took out a full-page ad in the Macao Daily noting the support of 241 initial members.

Chief among the influential people listed as backing the club were industrialist Ma Man-kei, a Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference vice chairman and Macau Chamber of Commerce president and Ho Hau-chiu, the brother of Macauâ??s Chief Executive Edmund Ho.

They were made honorary lifetime chairmen.

Huang Shao-tsen, the alleged former boss of Taiwan's Bamboo Union gang, and Albano da Conceicao Augusto Cabral, the former deputy director of the colonial Judicial Police, were also named honorary chairmen.

By midday, there was a strong Triad flavour in the air as nearly 100 people crowded into the new club's office upstairs in the Chun Fook Industrial Building, including a stream of young men with peroxide-laced hair. Amidst the hubbub, they offered incense before a statue of Kwan Ti, the God of War, Eastweek said.

Quoting an unidentified Triad member, the magazine said the establishment of the Heng Son Sports Club with Chau aka The Crow as chairman will make him responsible for bringing together the scattered members of the 14K for new work.

Other top club officials included industrialist Ma Man-kei's sons Ma Yau-shun and Ma Yau-man.

Ma Yau-shun is the eighth child in his family and is reportedly known as the Eighth Prince. He is a shareholder in the Casino Lisboa's Fu Sing VIP Room.

The ostentatious Lisboa Hotel, is the flagship of Macau gambling czar Stanley Ho who has extensive business dealings in Vancouver and Toronto. His daughters had applied for casino licences in B.C. under the NDP government.

Stanley Ho, the Asian casino king, is listed in a variety of intelligence reports in Canada and the U.S. as having strong Triad connections. Australia has banned him from operating casinos. His office has vehemently denied any criminal links.

Eastweek reported that although he holds no government post, Ma Yau-shun is responsible for major United Front tasks. He's very familiar with key government figures and gang members in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan and is frequently used to mediate disputes.

He's got extensive links with all walks of society and he never says no to friends who want to borrow money. But he keeps a low profile and seldom attends public occasions. This time, he stayed for the whole event, said Eastweek's Triad man adding That's really rare.

Aside from the Ma brothers, others in attendance included Broken Tooth's Triad big brother Blackie Hwa who is the director general of the newly-minted Heng Son Sports Club and boss of the Casino Lisboa, Four Seas gang boss Chia Jun-nien and a high-ranking member of the Bamboo Union - one of Taiwan's most powerful organized crime syndicates.

A number of high level representatives of gang lords in Hong Kong with affiliates in Vancouver and Toronto also attended the banquet.

It is only a question of time before we see how the events in Macau will play out locally, said a Vancouver-based Asian organized crime expert.

Stanley Ho