A

Hey, sweetie.

B

Your mother showed me this Carvana thing

A

for selling the car.

B

I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again.

A

I put in the license plate.

B

It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, Give it a whirl. Love ya. So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up Fees may apply. Support comes from Wise. The smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank, choose the smart way. Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise. Download the Wise app today. T's and C's apply 2:40 in the morning. September 4, 1977. The Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown. The place is packed. This is a neighborhood that runs on its own clock, the oldest Chinatown in the Americas. A few crowded blocks of the densest real estate in the city, where the waiters and the cooks and the gamblers and the gangsters and the college kids all come off, shift around the same time and go looking for noodles. The Golden Dragon stays open till dawn, and it's owned by the Ha Singh Tong, one of the old fraternal brotherhoods that have run this neighborhood since before anyone in the room was born. The Tongs, well, some are community organizations. Some are organized crime groups connected to the triads. Some are. Some are both. But more on that later. Everyone here, though, is just eating noodles and soup, families finishing a wedding banquet, a couple of tourists, college kids on a road trip. And scattered around the tables, young men from the street gangs that have turned these alleys into a shooting gallery for the last five years. Because you have to understand what chinatown is. In 1977, when the immigration laws in America change in 1965, a whole new wave of Asian immigrants hits chinatowns in the U.S. they're not farmers, kids, or from the country. They're kids and teenagers from the slums of Hong Kong and, to a lesser extent, Macau. And they arrive in the States and find few opportunities. And the neighborhoods, mostly peaceful since the vicious Tong wars half a century ago, don't Have a great place for them. So they form their own street gangs, assert their presence, get involved in the burgeoning underworld of Chinatown of gambling and drugs and prostitution and extortion. Led by the old guard who have been there for decades. But see some value in the new, wild youngsters who don't hesitate to get violent. So they put them on. And the gangs have now spent half a decade killing each other over gambling money and fireworks money and pride. Right out in the open in broad daylight on the most crowded streets in the city. Something like 50 people have been killed in those five years. And the cops can barely lay a finger on it because nobody in Chinatown talks to the cops, even if they could. And at one of the tables tonight, by his own telling, is a 17 year old kid fresh off the boat from Hong Kong about a year ago. Small, quiet looking runs with a young crew tied to the Hop Sing tongue. His grandmother gave him a nickname back home. A humble little name meant to fool the evil spirits into leaving him alone. She called him Shrimp Boy. Three young men walk in the door. They've got their faces half covered. One of them is carrying a.45. Two of them have shotguns. And they've come for the leaders of a rival gang they've been told are eating here. Somebody shouts and then the room comes apart. The gunmen open fire into a crowded restaurant. Not at one table, into the room. Tables go over, glass goes everywhere. People are screaming and crawling and trying to get under anything they can as the bullets keep flying. It lasts seconds. And when it's done and the shooters are gone, five people are dead on the floor of the Golden Dragon and 11 more are bleeding. The waiter, the tourists, the college kids. And here's the thing. Not one of the dead is a gangster. The gang members the shooters came for, they hit the floor, they crawl out and they live. Every single person killed is an innocent bystander who just wanted somewhere to eat at the end of the night. And that small, quiet 17 year old, he walks out of there alive. His real name is Raymond Chow. And the slaughter he survives that night is the opening scene of one of the strangest criminal lives this country has ever produced. A kid who climbed from this restaurant floor all the way to the top of a 150-year-old secret society. He'll become a snitch. And then a king will get a certificate of honor from the city of San Francisco and a shout out from a US senator and will end it all with two life sentences for murder and 160 or so other Charges having dragged a sitting California state senator down with him. This is the Underworld Podcast. Welcome back to the only podcast that dives into the world of international organized crime and the only podcast where the hosts are decently well adjusted human beings and not insane people. That's me, Danny Gold, and my co host and reformed Englishman, world traveler and casual layabout, Sean Williams, who was on his. What, like, I guess you were just on your ninth vacation of the year. I don't even know what country you're in right now or like what planet you're on.

A

Yeah, there's a few. Yeah, I got a nice tan. Sun's out. Out of office. Was on as usual. But still podcasting, so some things never die. Yeah.

B

Just going to just get through it. Are you. Can you talk about where you're going on Tuesday or are you going to get arrested by the feds?

A

This is going to go out. No, let's not talk about that. I'll do it on the next one. Yeah.

B

Yeah. Well, when you're back. I think we should. Yeah. Anyway, I am unfortunately not at the Spotify office this week, as you guys can tell. So you're going to have to make do with our sort of low quality. You're like in a state of Terry. What are you in right now? Just white walls and keeping you.

A

I mean, so we got, we got given like temporary accommodation after the temporary accommodation, after the temp accommodation. So I'm now in my like third white wall dead apartment of this trip so far. I was gonna look around and look at something, but there's. There's nothing. It just looks.

B

There's nothing there, dude.

A

In a hostage.

B

Just a white wall.

A

I'll hold up a newspaper or something.

B

I don't know. We'll get to only 45 minutes to go. We're gonna, we're get through this. We're gonna, we're gonna tough it out. As always, we've got bonus episodes for you over@patreon.com worldpodcast. That's where the real heads hang out. 5 bucks a month gets you all the bonus stuff. You can also sign up on Spotify or itunes to get these episodes ad free and a night early. Usually Merch T shirts. The whole catalog is@underworld pod.com and you can email us tips, complaints and offers a free product at the underworld podcast. Gmail.com. i want one of those. It's like really hot in New York, so. So my sweating through my apartment. I want one of those like mattress things the tech guys have. Where where you can cool off your mattress, you know what I'm talking about? They're like $3,000, you know, imagine. Yeah, Yeah. I feel like it'll. It's going to solve all the issues in my life. Beef jerky, you know, we just talked about. People just sent us beef jerky. So I'm, you know, taking a shot in the dark right here. Sleep pod 8. Pot. I don't know what the it's called. Whatever, Whatever, dude.

A

I don't know, man. I guess the key is you got to narrow it down quite a bit. So I guess we need to eventually just start making shows for organized criminals and not just about them. Maybe that would get us more talking about that for.

B

For years. Okay, so we're all over the place, guys. It's not gonna be. It's not gonna be our best. So just letting you guys know that right now. But we're gonna start with San Francisco's Chinatown. We've done a ton on Chinatown in New York City. A bunch of really good episodes which got into the history at the turn of the century a little bit. The great Tong wars in the 1910s, 1920s. So I would like to revisit that for a future episode. And then the gang wars of the 70s and 80s and Ghost Shadows, Flying Dragons, and even into the emergence of the Vietnamese gang Born to Kill. Just a real storied history. Fascinating stuff. Some of my favorite episodes. So go back and listen to those if you haven't before. But San Francisco, I think the Chinatown there has as much of a storied gangster past, albeit one that I don't know as much about. Though I did recently read the Barbary wars, which is the same guy who wrote the original Gangs in New York. And it does have a lot of just absolutely brutal stuff about the Chinatown gangs back then in San Francisco. Just insanely horrific prostitution networks, you know, opium dens, all that. I mean, we're talking gangs and stuff going back like 150 years, I think more so than even New York City when it comes to Chinatown or Chinese gangs, triads, all that. And even today, take for example, like if you order drugs delivered to you in New York City, it's going to be a Dominican guy in a Yankee hat driving a fake Uber Tahoe. But if you order drugs delivered to you in San Francisco, it's going to be a 23 year old Asian guy in an RX7 with a dragon tattoo down his arm and just a wild haircut. They get active over there. Sean. That's kind of What I'm trying to say. And nobody gets more active than shrimp Boy. And I mean, how could you not with that nickname, right? But also his story includes like a sitting California state senator getting arrested for trying to buy shoulder fire missiles for. From Muslim separatists in the Philippines. So, you know, there's a lot going on with this guy.

A

Okay, now you're picking my interest is that I'm assuming it's Abu Sayyaf or something.

B

I'm.

A

I actually met some of those guys. Terrible food, they would make me want to. Terrible food that would make me want to set up my own, you know, caliphate.

B

Make you join your own cal. Well, I would assume that they had terrible food because the Philippines food is basically all pork and it's actually delicious. So if you're, you know, a member of ISIS Philippines, like, you got, you got. It's noodles. You got, you got no flavor, you got nothing.

A

Do you know what? That's the first time I've thought about that since until now and first thought I had. You make a very good point. I mean, like, when I was out there, I was begging them for things that weren't crabs or pork. There was nothing. There were no vegetables. Looking around this, like, carpeted with beautiful palm trees and verdant hills and not, not a vegetable in sight. So I don't know how they don't have scurvy. Maybe that's why they've got those wispy little beards.

B

Oh, yeah, England's known for their vegetables. Like, come on, what are you doing here, bud? So a word on lore, too. We used to talk about that all the time. How it's sort of created, how to tell what's true, what's real between, like, embellishing law enforcement and lying ass criminals. Raymond Chow, or Shrimp Boy, is a guy who at one point told prosecutors he was in charge of all Asian organized crime in San Francisco. He's also a guy who told reporters with like a totally straight face that he never hurt anybody and just wanted to keep kids off the street through the power of meditation. So, you know, it's this guy, a lot of the stories, it's all over the place. He's very press friendly, loves to tell a good tale. Wrote a never published autobiography. So, you know, grain of salt is all I'm trying to say. He loved the press, this guy. I have a faint recollection, I think. I don't remember it exactly because my brain is riddled with holes. But I was at a journalism conference at Berkeley once, like back in the vice days. And I think a journalism professor either called Shrimp Boy on the phone when he was in prison and a chat with him for the conference, like live, or just played a tape of it and it was him saying just like, wild confessionary. Is that a word? Confessionary? Just wild stuff. So he's that sort of guy. Like, if he was in New York, he would have been, I think, an icon with a movie made about him that everyone would have. Would have talked about. Quick note on sources. There's just. There is a lot there out on. On. On him. There's the best long form stuff, I Think is a 2007 San Francisco weekly profile. There's a New York Times magazine piece from 2015, and then years of like, really intricate coverage from all the local San Francisco channels and outlets and websites. And the feds have a giant affidavit that I read through as well. But now we are going to go back to a much simpler time. 150 or 175 years ago, when Sean's views on Asians that he talks about, when the cameras are off, they were a lot more popular in California.

A

Century of humiliation, folks. I'm living it.

B

But a quick refresher. The triads are typically the name that comes up when you think of Chinese organized crime, and with good reason. They're these massive groups spread all over the world with tens of thousands of members heavy in Hong Kong. They started out as secret societies in the 17th century, and they formed as an act of rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, who had just taken over China. And the Qing dynasty were seen as like, these illegitimate leaders. And all these groups, these secret societies, wanted to bring them down. And again, I'm just going to tell this supposed origin story because it involves Shaolin monks. Then everyone my age who grew up listening to early 90s rap is obligated to tell stories about Shaolin monks. Like, whenever they pop up, it's like some real Jizza album intro shit. The legend goes that in 1674, the second emperor of the dynasty reaches out to some Shaolin monks to help him fight off a challenge. They do it, they succeed, and they do it really well. They refuse payment, and their popularity and reputation as fierce, honorable warriors grows after they finish the job. This worries the emperor, who sends his men to their monastery to kill them. I think this actually is the intro to Jizz's album right now that I think about it, you know, the emperor had demons and he sent, you know what I'm talking about. You don't know.

A

No, no. Like that. That era of rap is.

B

I think our fan base probably knows the exact like, you know, the sha. The emperor sent his ninja warriors. Anyway, only five out of 130 of the monks survive. And those five swear revenge and that they'll overthrow the emperor and re establish the previous dynasty. Each of the five starts a secret group dedicated to the goal. And they operate in the shadows against the feudal overlords. And it's actually Europeans who start calling them the Triads because their symbol is a triangle where the three sides represent heaven, earth and man. Others call it the Hungman Society. And apparently all Hong Kong triads trace their origin story to that from. And then in the future, the MCs come to live out the name. And it just goes from there on and on and on. These societies fought the empire and acted as the unofficial government where the actual government couldn't rule. Sort of like a similar vibe to how the Sicilian Mafia came to be in Sicily. And every time these secret societies try to rebel over the next few centuries, they fail. And each failure, these triads would flee the country, going to Hong Kong, Indochina and North America, especially in the 19th century. So by the 1900s, though, most of the group. These groups have pretty much done away with all the politics and we're focused, you know, on the fun stuff like running criminal enterprises.

A

Yeah, Shout out to the next episode, which is going to be about the rise of probably the biggest Chinese secret society slash narco gang during the Communist revolution, which was the Green Gang. So, yes, this is me telling Danny that I finally made it through that excruciating academic. But that's taken me, I don't know, maybe half the year so far, and on my 12th holiday of the year as well. So go me.

B

I offered to write those episodes, like five times. You were like, I want to do the Green Gang.

A

I really want to do the Green Gang.

B

It's so interesting. 2024, open the book.

A

And then I slammed my head into the wall many times, but I've done it now, so we're good to go.

B

That's why you're in that white room with nothing on the walls. Keep just hitting yourself.

A

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I've just. I've washed all the red off it now.

B

Chinese immigration into the U.S. it really starts in the mid 19th century as immigrants come into work as laborers and minors, often working in seriously bad conditions and facing, like, really horrible systemic racism. The first big waves of Chinese immigration to California comes with the gold rush, which is 1849. And after then, you have the railroads, famously, you know, it's overwhelmingly men, overwhelmingly from the Pearl river delta in Guangdong province coming to do these brutal. This brutal later labor that nobody else wants to for a fraction of the pay. The first tong is established in 1860 in California. The tongs are like civic organizations like the rotary club or a merchant organization, set up so that they could all look out for each other. But they also serve as, like, protectors in his courts, because the Chinese don't trust the official American ones. They're modeled after the triads, and some are triad affiliated, but they're at first kind of legitimate, like, mutual aid societies. And they draw their membership from the railway workers and gold miners, some of whom had been triads themselves. And they fled the crackdowns and famines back in China. Of course, as the amount of Chinese immigrants continues to grow in Chinatown's form in cities, like any insular ethnic community during the time, from the Italians to the Jews to the Irish, somebody needs to control the vice rackets. And the tongs step up, and they do just that. You got the gambling houses, prostitution, opium. There's just. There's money to be made there, especially when it's, like, 95% men, you know, so you have, like, this bachelor society. So the vice economy, like I said, heavy on the prostitution. It's just. It's enormous.

A

Yeah. Isn't bachelor society the name of that reality show you're pitching?

B

It's actually about the vacations that you just went on in Amsterdam with your. With your friends, with your bro.

A

Oh, nice. Yeah.

B

Okay. So, of course, you have all this money being made and this racket sort of being controlled. And what happens. You have different guys who want to. Who want to, you know, be the overseers. You have the tong wars, which break out in the 1890s, and Chinatown's actually across the country. In Boston, in San Francisco and New York. You have various tongs trying to seize territory and control. You've got newspapers then are full of, like, these lurid stories about Chinatown tong violence. Hatchet men were famous. They killed people with hatchets, pistols, opium dens, slave girls, murder alleys. Some of it exaggerated, sensationalized, cartoonish, but some of it very, very real. There's that show with warrior. You ever see that?

A

No. No? When's that?

B

It's on, like, one of the. One of the paid channels in the US about, like, fighting like. Like the. The tong war is basically in. In Oakland, in San Francisco, I think. But, like, very kind of this came

A

up recently it looks kind of good, actually.

B

Yeah, I watched it for a bit. It was good. But it's very, very, very similar vibes. And those tong wars, they eventually settle by like 1920, 1930. But the Tongs do maintain their power in the community. A 1988 paper by the Justice Department described it like this, quote. During and after this transition, Tong leadership retained a powerful hold on the business and politics of American Chinatowns. Today, some tongs sponsor a complex mixture of legal and illegal activities and remain essential to Chinese organized crime leaders because of their influence within the Chinese community. Moreover, a few tong leaders are themselves deeply involved in criminal conspiracies. Now, right before the Tong war broke out, the tong wars broke out. The US had passed the Chinese Exclusion act of 1882, which basically severely restricted Chinese immigrants. And that's Followed by the 1924 National Origins act, which restricts a whole lot of immigration to different groups, including Asians and Chinese. So you don't really have new people coming into the communities besides the ones that are getting smuggled in for like 50 years. So things calm down quite a bit in the mid 20th century after those early wars with the massacres and the wild violence. But that all changes in 1965 with the Immigration Naturalization act of 1965. And all of a sudden you have Chinese immigrants jumping from like sometimes as low as 100 a year to 20,000. You know, that's where we get these sort of poor, violent teens mentioned in the cold open. They're from the slums though, not the farms, right? They arrive at the Chinatown that's overcrowded and short on jobs. And they get mocked by the kids who are born here, the American born Chinese or the ABCs, not to be confused with the ABGs who also have their strongholds in the Bay Area. So yeah, these kids, they form up their gangs, you know, in the New York. It's like the Ghost Shadows and the Flying Dragons. In San Francisco, you get the watching, which means youth of China. They're kind of bunch of fresh off the boat kids hanging around the Hop Sing Tong's gambling joints. The old Tongs kind of look at these kids, these street kids, and they realize they're going to make perfect muscle lookouts for the gambling dens, protection enforcers. Because you know, then and even now, you got all the Chinese business owners paying protection money. But all the rival tongs, they're growing their own youth crews to compete and sort of take over that hustle. It's crazy because it happens exactly the same in New York. In Boston and in San Francisco, you have these same trends happening. And by the early 1970s, Chinatowns are like a low grade war zone. You've got the watching, you've got a breakaway crew called the Joe Boys. And you've got Tong affiliated crews like the Hop Singh Boys, which are the youth wing of the Hop Sing Tong. And they're fighting over everything that was the same 50 years ago. Gambling, extortion, loan sharking, seasonally and very lucratively. Illegal fourth of July fireworks would challenge Kuwait. Until you have people who start dying over it. Oh, and it's into all of this. In 1976, that 16 year old kid from Hong Kong walks off a plane.

A

Yes. Nice. This is the 90s movies voice.

B

Yeah. Raymond Chow is born Chow kwak chiong on December 31, 1959 in Hong Kong, then a British colony. He has three brothers, two older, one younger. Some other sources say he was born in 1960 in mainland China. But Hong Kong I think definitely makes more sense now. It's not 100%, but most stories have him being nicknamed Shrimp Boy by his grandmother because he's a small kid. But also per the family story, to fool the evil spirits into overlooking him by making him sound like, you know, not important, like nothing, like, like a shrimp. I swore I've known about this guy for like 15 years. And I thought it was because he ran like a seafood company, which is something a lot of a Asian organized crime was involved with. I don't know, kind of like that version better in my head, you know, just kind of life, Sean, isn't it? It's always. It's always better in your head. It's like when you have a song you think has like this deep meaning and then you look it up and there's an interview with the singer and he's like, yeah, I wrote this song by my friend Carl because he kept getting too drunk and like peeing in the closet. And that's like the entire meaning of the song.

A

Yeah, I remember you telling me about that tune in New York when we met. And I wonder why you're talking about like Kierkegaard and stuff. Because to be fair, it's just called Carl's Boozy Wee Wee song. Wasn't it?

B

These, I mean, these jokes are just not. You must be jet lagged.

A

What is going on, Eyes? The jet lag is real. I should be in bed like two hours ago.

B

But put some shades on, man.

A

Yeah, I should have done, actually, but I would have looked too cool.

B

Yeah, we can't we can't have that. According to the New York Times, his dad runs a successful barber shop, but loses it to gambling debts when he's like, 8 or 9 years old. So Shrimp Boy's entire family moves into a shack, which later burns down, and then they move to an even worse shack. Not just a normal shack, a much worse shack. That's how poor he is. He's a small kid, but he's tough, he's violent, he's drawn to the street life, and he gets recruited at 9 by local gang members to start ferrying heroin around. He also stabbed some people up for this gang leader. By his telling, he's a teenage boss running things, getting cash from the gambling dens. Before he ever leaves Hong Kong, I wonder if he was in, like, you know, that old apartment complex in Hong Kong where, like, you didn't see the sun.

A

Oh, my God. Yeah, the. The wall. Kowloon Walled City. That is so cool, that place.

B

I always wonder what. I think they. I think it doesn't exist anymore, but it.

A

No, they knocked it down. Yeah.

B

Yeah. What a place, huh? He says he comes to San Francisco carrying an actual letter of introduction from his gang boss back home. Again, do we know this is true? Not really. I mean, it could very well be, but it also could be complete bs, which kind of reminds me of the early episodes we did on when the Russian mafia came to Brooklyn. And a lot of sources would be like, this guy killed 17 Czechoslovakians back home and was a vore and was like, from the gulags. And then some other source would be like, he actually only ever spent six weeks in prison because he got caught stealing bicycles.

A

Were the magazine articles that you read for this, like, more legit? Because I feel like a lot of lazy feature writers just quote random books like the Gospel, and then hedge with a non to a source, like, well, I mean, like, we do in every episode of this show, basically.

B

I mean, they were good, but, like, the New York Times magazine article was based on a lot of what he said about himself, which, you know. You know how I feel about stuff like that. When it comes to guys like this, I don't take that as. As, like, primary source material. So I try in the episode to be like, according to his family, according to him in that regard, because you do have to take that stuff, especially, you know, these guys are hustlers.

A

Like, they're.

B

They're liars for a living. And when they're telling their own story, they're not gonna be like, yeah, I was like, a pussy. Back home and just like a wiener kid. And I came here and then I. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just not gonna be. You're either gonna get a completely exaggerated version of like how they're just a nice guy who did nothing wrong or how they were like the baddest guy to ever exist, essentially.

A

Why you call it, why you call it shrimp? Well, because, you know, I'm quiet and small.

B

Yeah.

A

Oh. Oh, sorry. You want. And my mum wanted to ward off evil spirits.

B

Cool.

A

Okay, we got it. Yeah, good quote.

B

So he arrives in San Francisco around 1976 at about 16 years old with his family, third grade education, can barely read or write English and he never really will. Almost immediately he falls in with the Hop Singh boys, the street enforcers tied to the Hop Sing Tong. They're shaking down the gambling dens, you know, pimping the classic sort of apprenticeship that you have when you're a 16 year old Chinatown gangster. And he stands out fast for one quality above all, which is that he just does not hesitate to get violent. And he throws down. There's a story he tells the New York Times magazine again, his story, that not long after he arrives at 17, somebody drops him at a house in a wealthy part of town and tells him to beat up the guy who lives there to send a message on behalf of some mafia types who hired them. Shrimp Boy says he finishes the beating with the help of 2x4 in about two minutes and walks away $3,000 richer. And then about a year after he gets to town, Shrimp Boy is sitting in a restaurant on Washing street when the world goes sideways. And this is where we get the cold open. To understand what happens at that restaurant, the Golden Dragon, we go back to the fireworks I mentioned. You know how it goes, man. Maybe in New York, right before July 4th, you and your pals drive over to Pennsylvania, you load up the car trunk with fireworks, you come back to the block, you sell them for 2, 3, 4 times the cost of 14 year old Puerto Rican kids who set them off at 3am or 4am for about seven weeks in a row. And you're forced to just kind of lay there in bed. You can't go back to sleep, Sean. And you're just like thinking about where did it all go wrong? Why is this, why am I not sitting on the Mediterranean right now? Maybe the Adriatics even just eating tiny fried fish, maybe drinking an apparel spritzer and negroni. But you're not, Sean, are you? You're in Brooklyn and the Fireworks, they just, they just keep going off at 3:15am even when it's August 12th.

A

You know what poetry you weave sometimes, it's really, it's very beautiful. I mean, I'm sitting in a empty apartment looking like a, looking at a dog mess bag. So there's where I am if anyone wants to know.

B

Yeah, you just got back from vacation. You're about to go to a tropical environment to do some.

A

So too much information.

B

Oh, yeah, yeah. People could probably put two or two together from that one that we should talk about because the feds and because. But either way, I'm sure I don't think they listen to the ball actually. And we're live on matchday as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing.

A

He's got it.

B

Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match Days deserve Pepsi. Where is Daredevil? I'm right here. Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born again. So what's next? I feel liberated. We're gonna take this city back over

A

medicated in an all new season.

B

Now streaming only on Disney plus. They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them. I can work with them. This should be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born again. Now streaming only on Disney. The Colonels cooked up a new $10 bucket of the day just for you. Monday, 24 nuggets for ten dollars. Tuesday, eight piece fried chicken for ten dollars. Wednesday, ten wings for ten dollars. Thursday, eight tenders for ten dollars. Friday, 24 nuggets for. Oh, you guessed it, didn't you? Ten dollars finger licking machine. The ten dollar bucket of the day deal. Every weekday only at KFC, it's finger licking. Good prices and participation. Variable supplies last not available on third party ordering platforms. Taxidermy extra. Never mind. Now in San Francisco, kids stream at the Chinatown from all over the Bay area to buy illegal fireworks for the fourth of July. And the sales are run by a crew called the Ping Boys. Kids from the Ping one housing projects. They work under the watching who take a cut and that's actually, it's real money. Like it's, it's legit. On July 4, 1977, a group of Joe Boys, that's another gang, they go up to the Pinguan Projects planning to rob the Ping Boys of all their piled up fireworks. Cash. This is what, the 70s, right? Everything's in cash. They can't find parking, which you know I get. So they walk up to the project on foot and the rivals spot them. A gun battle breaks out right there. When it's over, one Joe boy is dead and several others are wounded. The war, the watching, and the Joe boys and the tongba crews are fighting. It runs hot over this for years. It splits right out into the open, you know, down Grand Ave. And Pacific and Stockton, the most crowded blocks in the neighborhood. One estimate put something like 50 lives lost over the five years of it. Like, this is legit gang war stuff. Daytime shootings on busy streets. Guys chasing rivals through produce stalls into parked cars. People diving behind doorways while tourists are out buying postcards a block away. You know, it's a tiny, dense patch of the city. Like a lot of Chinatowns are few hundred square yards, really. Everyone knows everybody and everyone's shooting at everyone. And I think, I assume San Francisco was like New York in that, you know, the. The early 90s get a lot of attention for the murder rate being as the highest it's ever been. But the late 70s in these cities was really, really bad too. And this was without crack. I mean, there was definitely fights over heroin, but people were just shooting each other all the time back then.

A

There was a.

B

Law enforcement was terrible over fireworks. Yeah. So insane. I probably should have looked it up before we started recording, but. But I assume because the trends follow each other. Late 70s San Francisco also had a pretty high murder rate, almost on par with the crack war era. But underneath that gunfire, right, it's actual business, which is squeezing the neighborhood for money. All the extortion, all the protection rackets, merchants, the restaurants, the gambling houses, the massage parlors, every single one, they gotta pay so that the window doesn't get broken, the customers don't get scared off. The gambling dens are making a ton of cash. Can we be. Can we slow into some. Some pai Gao stereotypes of just, you know, Chinese guys gambling? You ever see that. That clip on YouTube of the. Of the meme of the guy who's wearing sunglasses? It's like seven o'.

A

Clock.

B

It's like a gambling dent just got busted up. I think it's in a Boston Chinatown. And the guy's like, wearing sunglasses in a black leather trench coat. And they're like, did you know there was a gambling den right here? And the guy's me? No. No idea. I have no idea. You ever seen. You know what I'm talking about?

A

No.

B

Oh, it's one of the great.

A

Stick it on the lid. I gotta see it.

B

Yeah, just look it up. It's incredible. So, yeah, the kids, they are the forces. They go in, they rough up the shopkeepers, they stand guard at the gambling dens to make sure the other tongs don't rob them. And the tongs themselves, they can maintain the air of community leader and respectability while they privately take a cut and basically oversee everything. In New York, it led to some conflict, I think, where the street guys were kind of just like, were actually in charge, not you guys and the tonks, the older guys couldn't control them. That's when you had the infamous Nikki Louie, the ghost, all that sort of stuff. But I don't know if it got to that point. San Francisco, where they had it locked down much, much more. The Joe boys, they blame the watching leadership. A guy named Michael Hot dog Louie in particular. And on top of their dead friend, they come to believe that like the. Their gang members that died throughout the course of this war, their graves are desecrated, which violates a deep underworld code about respecting the dead in this sort of Chinese gang war stuff. So they start planning. You know, you get the James Brown going. Actually, don't do that, Dale. We. We can't get that copyright thing for right now.

A

Yeah, but wait, will there be some like, amazing Chinese knockoff version of it? Because that would be perfect for this.

B

Of the payback. Yeah, there might be. I'm sure there is. So the night of September 3, 1977, that's when a Joe Boys boss gets his boys together. They get the guns together. They plan it so the younger members are the trigger pullers because they won't see a serious time. They get the tip that Michael Louie hot dog is eating late at that restaurant. About 2:40 in the morning, September 4, 1977, the three guys walk in masked up packed restaurant Sunday into Monday. Crowd, families, shift workers, tourists, college kids, all that. Somebody yells, man with a gun. The actual target, Michael Louie hits the floor. And the gunmen just open up right there. They spray the room. We get the cold open one, it's over. Five people are dead. Eleven more are wounded. I mean, this is. I can't remember the last time five people were killed in a shootout in New York. Yeah, I don't even. I mean, you have to go back 20 or 30 years. Like, this is. We're talking insane stuff. Not one of the dead is a gangster. They're like waiters and tourists and kids fresh out of college visiting San Francisco. One survivor tells abc seven decades later that he grabbed his friends. They all hit the deck and Quote, all hell broke loose, and they felt the blood coming out of him. I think there's actually a similar shooting that happened in Boston in the 90s, maybe in New York around the time. Like, all the teenage Chinatown gang banging was just wild, wild stuff. So where is Shrimp Boy in this? By his own account, he's 17 at the time. He's inside the Golden Dragon that night eating with other Hop Sing Boys when the shooting starts and he survives it. And that's reported kdtvu, ktvu, which is San Francisco channel NBC, the History Channel. Gangland. They all repeat this. We don't know that. That he was there, but it might well be true. That massacre front page news around the world. Chinatown business craters Chamber. Conest says it drops by half. The mayor puts up $100,000. Ward San Francisco PD, they revive an old Chinatown gang squad called the Asian Gang Task Force. It eventually gets credited with basically ending open gang warfare in Chinatown by 1983. And seven Joe Boys are eventually convicted of the murder.

A

Why do you think this stuff didn't travel like the Italian Mafia stories from New York or any other cities in the United States? Because I didn't know anything about this kind of stuff before we did the part. I don't think we. We would know anything outside America of these gangs.

B

You mean globally?

A

Yeah, yeah.

B

The Godfather, Mario Puzo.

A

Right.

B

That was huge.

A

And then, yeah, just good story.

B

I think that's. I mean, they were bigger and more violent and. And for much longer, the Italian Mafia, you know, and they were much, much more powerful.

A

You know, that's true.

B

I mean, they controlled. They didn't just control local Chinatown politicians. You had, you know, very high up politicians in America being control, like, you know, on the take, like they were as. And they mixed with all the celebrities and all that sort of, you know, it was just a different level of success and power and violence. Like, these guys were violent, but it. I mean, the Italian mob and back then was, you know, dozens of people a year. The mob wars of the Colombo war, I think was around like it was insane.

A

Yeah. Thank you for answering my question.

B

Hey, anytime, bud.

A

Cheers. Sometimes you learn things. I was thinking about when you were talking about the gambling as well, the. The kind of stereotypes about Chinese gambling. And next week's episode has got some kind of hilarious insights into the kind of games that Chinese people are playing for money, which is, you know, some of them are like, pick up stones, chuck the stones on the floor, bet on that, or let's throw some dice. Literally anything anyone's Betting on that. There's one about sticks. Just chuck a load of sticks on the floor. We'll bet on that. They've all got a name.

B

Rules. I would lose money on that for sure. I think also too, Chinatown was a lot more insular than, you know, Little Italy was maybe after the 9th, early 1900s. Right. Language difference. Even then the police didn't know what to do because they didn't have anyone who spoke the language, so let alone reporters getting good stuff. So I think the insularity is a big, big part of that. As for shrimp Boy, he's able to rise a bit in that vacuum of power when all those arrests happened and, and he's become kind of a known quantity, like a young up and comer. It doesn't last long though, before he gets caught up. In 1978, he goes down for the first time. Strong arm robbery in Chinatown. And the way he tells it, I don't know. Is he always going to have this version where it's not quite his fault. He's been led to believe he's going to rob some shady gambling parlor. When he gets there, he realizes that's not the case. But he already has his gun out, so he's just going to go ahead and rob them anyway. Can't put the gun back inside. He gets 11 years. Serves about 70 years and four months where he says he was dealt. He dealt heroin when he was inside the jail and inside prison. He gets paroled in 1985. So he comes out just when that power vacuum is kind of kicking off. He gets out and right away gets involved in running an escort service. He's like sitting outside a noodle shop when he notices some, some hookers nearby. And he convinces them he can help them make more money than their current pimps. So he rents a big house, he sets up shop, and he's making tons of cash. From the New York Times quote, he started rolling profits into a variety of enterprises. Cocaine distribution, fencing stolen weapons and Rolexes, jewelry and pills. Shrimp Boy talks about that stage of his life as normal people often talk about college. Crazy time. Learned a lot, needed to grow up and move on.

A

Also just sounds exhausting. I mean, too many phone calls and emails. Does email exist at this point? I don't know. Terrible. Like telegram chats and pop up ads. I just don't think it's worth a life anymore. I don't know.

B

You sit, you sit in the back of a tea shop and you have your people do stuff for you.

A

Yeah.

B

Hang out, you know, that's the thing about organized crime that I think people forget, it mostly is a miserable life, I feel like, when it comes down to it. But you can spend a lot of time hanging out with your friends, you know, maybe at the pork store, maybe just going out at strip club at the. At the bars. Like, you get to hang out a whole lot with your buds, you know,

A

I mean, that's why people are listening to this show. Me.

B

But, like, that's. That's. That the underrated aspect. It's not about the money and the power. It's about just like, you know, who else gets to go four or five nights a week, hang out with their pals?

A

Yeah. Yeah.

B

I'm sorry. Why would you. Sorry, babe. I can't watch the kids. It's business day. Like, I got to go. I can't. I got to watch the kids. Yeah, you got to watch the kids. I can't do it, you know?

A

Yeah, actually, yeah, you're on something there.

B

It's. The power of friendship is really what it's all about.

A

Yeah. I'll have a word. All right.

B

Until they snitch on each other and everyone or try to kill each other, which is always, you know, that's the negative part. So he also gets into a shootout with a guy who had been messing with his sister in law. And in 1986, so barely out, he's charged with a whole stack. Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, mayhem, illegal firearm possession. There's a great trim boy line from a later jailhouse interview where a porter asked him about the rumor that he used to chase people through Chinatown with a machine gun. And he goes, well, yeah, people shot at me. Which fair? Chinatown gangs, like I said, very wild. He does about three more years, and he gets out again around 1989. When he gets out this time, he claims he's going on the straight and narrow path. He takes a job begging groceries at a store in. In Daily City. The job ends when his boss gets a spooked phone call from the SFPD gang force. Basically a heads up about who they're hiring. So he gets fired. He also says he tries working as a bodyguard at a casino over in Oakland.

A

But wait, am I misunderstanding this? Because why did the cops do that? They're basically making him turn to crime again.

B

You're just. You're keeping tabs, you know? But, yeah, of course, it's. It's what's gonna happen. They're probably like, this guy's a gangster. We're gonna mess with him as much as possible. And try to get him on something. I don't know. But that's the pattern, right? Every single time he gets out, he's go says, I'm going straight now. And then pretty much right after that, he's locked up again. This time, though, when he gets out in 1989, something is different, because waiting for him is a guy with a much bigger idea. The guy's name is Peter Chong, and everyone calls him Uncle. He's born in 1943, so kind of a generation older than Chow. He gets sent to San Francisco from Hong Kong around 1989 as the Advancement for a Hong Kong triad called the Wo Hop Toe. With San Francisco as their kind of beachhead for the triad's big push into America. His cover story, which is widely repeated, was that he'd come to set up a Chinese opera enterprise. In reality, the core records would later put him as the head of the Wo Hop Toes American operation. I think we briefly mentioned this in the. In an episode way back on White Devil John with Donnie Barstool, who was the white masshole who became a gang boss in Boston's Chinatown. But also really interesting, you have this same sort of thing happen right around the same time, 89, 90, 91, 92, with the Russian mobsters maybe like, a little bit later. They were leaders from sort of overseas organized crime, you know, foreign ones, Russia and Hong Kong, being sent to America to organize, to get things under control. Which is really interesting. Think about. You really think of American law enforcement, I think, as being a step above law enforcement these other countries. But there's just. There was so much. There still is so much money to be made here that these guys see this as, like, a foreign operation. They can go, I think yakuza too, right? Weren't they big and all?

A

Yeah.

B

Maybe a different era was that 70s or 80s when they were getting set up in Hawaii.

A

Mid 80s, early mid-80s, yeah. They were huge.

B

So it's crazy. I mean, imagine these international forces for the feds in, like, like, 82 to, like, 95. When you're dealing with the expansion of, like, massive criminal organization, right? Yakuza, triads and the Russian mafia. Crazy.

A

Yeah. And all of the smaller ones. I mean, you had the, like, Filipino gangs and Indonesians and Cambodians. I don't know.

B

But those are. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Those are small ethnic gangs. Not the same as, like, international coming.

A

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B

There's always gonna be smaller thinkings. But coming here to set up shop, right? You could do, dude, law and order. Organized crime could have been so much better if they based it in the 80s around this stuff and made it,

A

you know, I'm just saying that's actually a genuinely good idea for a TV show.

B

Dude, I've pitched documentary. I remember I might. Whatever, dude. I'm done with that. Because the Wah yeah, the Wall Hop Toe. They're not a street crew, right? It's one of the oldest and heaviest triads in Hong Kong. Name translates to something like harmoniously united association. So, you know, they're going to be completely psychotic. It starts in 1908. Political, of course, at first. By the second half of the 20th century, they're reckoned to be one of the biggest triads in Hong Kong. The kind of outfit that internationally runs protection rackets, gambling, tens of thousands of members across the broader sort of wall group it belongs to. So when Peter Chong shows up at San Francisco in 1989, he's not just like a young guy or schmuck, freelancing, right? He's planting the flag of a serious Hong Kong triad institution in American soil. And he needs a local guy, kind of like, who knows the ground and can be his muscle. And that is Shrimp Boy. Chong has got big plans, and he takes one look at Shrimp Boy and he goes, that's my guy right there. He's a force in the Hop Sing. He's going to be the American lieutenant, right hand man. And Trim Boy becomes by his own later courtroom admission, the number two of the Wo Hop Toes US Arm. And they start right away asserting themselves, right? There's a gang war brewing with the watching. And it's not just, you know, San Francisco. Uncle Chong has big plans for. They want to take all the squabbling tongs and street gangs across American Chinatowns and merge them into one giant super triad. And he wants to run both the east coast and the West Coast. Asian heroin trademark, which is massive at that time. One organization to rule over them all. San Francisco, New York, Boston, the whole country. They've even got a name for it, Tian Ha we, the Whole Earth association, which kind of a badass name when you think about it.

A

Yeah, pretty much. No notes.

B

The Boston piece especially involves trying to fold in local players. And one Boston boss refuses. There's a botched assassination attempt that helps blow the whole thing open and. And bring down the federal heat, who kind of wise up to everything after that shooting. I think we go into details on that in the White Devil John episode. However, like, however, exactly, it unravels. By 1992, the feds have a big, big racketeering case ready to go. Shrimp boy also gets arrested in 1992 in an airport for drug trafficking after a reported snitch who he then orders beaten. He also eventually swept up in that massive racketeering, racketeering case that year, or I think a year later. That also goes after Peter Chong. Tied to the wall, hop toe. Asian gangs on both coasts, Murder for hire allegations, extortion, firearms, racketeering, like the works, everything. Chong sensing it coming. He flees to Hong Kong days ahead of the indictment. And I think, even though it was British then, I don't think they, they extradited like that, you know, or if they did, it was a serious, serious effort. The case gets split up, but Shrimp boys hit with a Rico in 1992. The trial actually ends in a mistrial, a hung jury, which briefly must have felt like a very big win because the feds do not often lose when they take stuff to trial, especially when it's RICO. But then he gets convicted on six federal gun trafficking counts. The judge drops the hammer. 20 plus years. I mean, rough. Really, really rough. That is, if he's going to do the whole time, which he is not.

A

I mean, I should have said before, but it would have been a hung trial no matter what happened, right?

B

Hey, it's pretty good actually. Your. Your goal. The jet lag must be wearing off because now you're, you're coming in hot.

A

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me another five minutes and then I'll. I'll be dead.

B

So, yeah, he's not going to serve that time because in 1998, Peter Uncle Chong, the shot caller who fled first to. To. Actually, he fled to Macau. I'm sorry. Then to Hong Kong, is arrested, and then in 2000, he finally gets extradited back to the US and Shrimp Boy decides it's time to flip on him around 2002.

A

Yeah, I mean, you just kind of sort of nodded to this before, but Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, so they weren't willing or able to extradite. But then afterwards, the Chinese actually get this guy and extradite to the US So I. It's just really interesting. I mean, it kind of like goes alongside what we're going to talk about next week as well. How the French and the French Concession in Shanghai use gangsters and sort of shipped them in where they wanted to. But yeah, it's pretty, pretty interesting how the British couldn't get a handle on these guys or didn't want to.

B

Shrimp boy cuts a Deal with the feds, pleads guilty to federal racketeering, reportedly including murder for hire, conspiracy to distribute, heroin, and arson. And in 2002, he takes the stand and testifies against his old boss. He kind of saw it as like, you know, Chong just basically abandoned him and fled and then tried to have his people pin everything on shrimp boy, even leaning on. On Trim Boy's own defense lawyer. So as far as he was concerned, he's not betraying him. He was betrayed first. Kind of feel like that's what people who flip say a lot, but, you know, it seems somewhat legit.

A

Yeah.

B

Chong gets convicted and gets 15 years. Shrimp Boy walks free in 2003, but when he gets out, the government doesn't restore his immigration status and doesn't put him in witness protection. So this legendary sort of all powerful crime figure comes out of prison 2003, he's broke, green card issues, and he's crashing on the couch with relatives and a girlfriend and a record. So you know what that means. It is time, Sean, to turn over a new leaf. He is a changed man. Look at the Rangeman. Now, according to shrimp Boy, not really a shrimp man when you actually kind of think about it. He says he found he finds peace through meditation and through Buddhism, which is similar, actually to many white girls in their 30s when they give up a life of crime or just doing too much blow in nightclub bathrooms. I've actually tried to find peace through meditation, and it hasn't worked out for me. I even did that class with David Lynch. I still have no peace of mind, but, you know, I'm trying to find it through a luxury apartment building and spending $250 on dinner. So we'll see if that works out.

A

I mean, that's. Has that just ruled us out? About half of the companies that advertise on podcasts these days, but. Yeah, but. Shout out to my Berlin psychiatrist who had an unexpectedly pleasant reunion last week, who among.

B

I can't wait to see where this is going.

A

Some very juicy anecdotes about high profile politicians has also taught me a great meditation technique I thus found out was created by a Nazi. So that. That made me feel a little bit dirty afterwards. But, you know, if you go to Germany, what do you expect? Really?

B

I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Isn't like the modern example of yoga. Wasn't it created by, like, a white German guy in, like, the 1930s or 20s? Is that a thing?

A

Yeah.

B

No, not Pilates, no, Yoga, like, like the. The modern rendition of yoga. There's a story. There's a couple of stories out there that it was. I don't know if it was a Nazi, but it was like. I think it was Dutch or German, something like that. In, like, the 1930s or 1940s or,

A

like, you know, Okay, I don't know that, but Pilates is definitely a German guy.

B

Look at him. Someone fact check that. Dale.

A

Fact check that.

B

Does Dale ever jump in and be like, not true. That's not true.

A

Actually, Ju.

B

Let's start doing that. I'd be like, not true. But shrimp boy. Sean, where is shrimp boy right now? He's in San Francisco. And in San Francisco, they will buy any redemption arc in the world over there. If it's for a good cause, if it's for progress, you can just be like, oh, yeah, I'm a change money. Yeah, doesn't matter. They will throw tens of thousands of dollars at you for your redemption arc. He starts speaking at high schools. He's at middle schools at risk youth programs, telling kids not to grow up to be like him. He teams up with a local politician to put on talks about Chinese culture and heritage. He becomes a fixture on that sort of, you know, circuit, whatever you want to NGO volunteer, whatever, do Gooder circuit. He's rocking bespoke suits. He's got a pocket square. He's got a shaved head. He's got swagger. He's got that really thin mustache. Kind of got the reformed gangster with a heart of gold thing going on. You know, he's seen it always come back to warn the youth. And, you know, they. They love him. The politicians, the establishment, the NGOs. It's actually like a. There's so many of those groups in, like, California, man. There's a big one with, like, the. The Salvadoran gangsters, too. I love those groups, man. Look, some of them, like, street interrupt all this sort of stuff. I don't want to say, like, they're all actually just using it to recruit people to get into gang life. There are some that do really good work, just a whole lot more that are, you know, using it as cover. In 2006, San Francisco Supervisor Fiona Ma gives him a certificate of honor from the city. When the SF Chronicle later ask her about it, she says shrimp boy, quote, learned his lesson the hard way and wants to be a positive influence on the lives of young people. In 2012, US Senator Dianne Feinstein recognizes him as a former offender who became an asset to the community. And the same year, an assemblyman gives him a change agent award Mayor A.D. lee praises his willingness to give back. In 2009, he stands in front of City hall and says, quote, all the criminal past I had. I cannot deny that. But today, I do not represent crime. I do not represent violence and gangs.

A

I don't know, I might be wrong here, but I feel like this is foreshadowing something. Danny. I don't know.

B

I'm sensing Sean, I might have laid it on a little too heavy, to be honest with you, and that's on me. Should have gone a little back and forth, like maybe he's actually doing good, maybe he's not. I just, you know, I'm too cynical sometimes. It's late at night. It's hot. I'm just being kind of a dick, you know, I just. I went. I went too hard. That's on me for not suspenseful storytelling, you know, whatever. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful, powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now@palmolive.com this is a paid message from GoFundMe. Meet Juan Naula.

A

When a son was hospitalized for a

B

viral infection, Juan started a GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses. It was 5k to pay the bill for my son, and I needed only 22 hours. It was amazing. People really trust on GoFundMe. How did Juan raise $5,000 in less than a day? He posted a short video on GoFundMe telling his story in 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Be specific, be quick and tell what are you going to be using the funds for? I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money. But you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the results. We were able to save my son's life thanks to gofundme that we still have my son with us. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this message reflects one person's experience. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to

A

bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

B

Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster.

A

Anyway.

B

He's working on, he's working on a memoir at that time. I'm sure there's like movies being talked, all that sort of stuff. That is, of course, the surface, but underneath the surface, Sean, you know what's, what's really going on. February 27, 2006. So this is a little back in time. It's a gray Monday afternoon in San Francisco's Chinatown. There's a cramped little import export shop. A 56 year old man named Alan Leong is doing what he does most days. It's one of those shops that you know, only really exists in immigrant neighborhoods. There's paperwork everywhere, clutter, there's boxes and goods going to and arriving from Hong Kong. It's a small family shop. His wife's there, so is an old friend just passing the time. Leong's like a respected guy, an elder, old school community figure. He hosts these sort of Chinatown banquets that you hear about, marches in the Chinatown New Year's parade, in the Chinese New Year's parade. But he's not just a quiet shopkeeper. He's the Dragon Head, the elected leader of the Gi Kong Tong, which is one of the oldest Chinese fraternal societies in America. In English, it goes by the Chinese Freemasons, though it has nothing to do with Western freemasonry. It grows out of an old imperial Chinese secret brotherhood called the Hong Men, which, besides being a common typo in Sean's Internet searches, is also the name of a group that goes back to the days of trying to overthrow the. The Xingqing dynasty. I think we made the Hong man joke before, haven't we?

A

Yeah, maybe. Maybe about half a dozen times.

B

Yeah, that's gonna keep. It's. It's a good one. You might have heard about yourself, I think, in the Monk Eastman episode.

A

Maybe. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, we've done it. I've done it about you. You've done it about me? I've done it about me. You've done it about you. It's never getting old either. Who doesn't like a hung man?

B

No. No. Fun fact, though. Their headquarters is in the heart of Chinatown and it sheltered Sun Yat Seng, who's the father of Modern China, who we talked about in the Eastman episode, and you're probably going to talk about, I think, next week, which he used that sort of network across North America to raise money for the 1911 revolution that finally toppled the Qing Xing dynasty. One of the dynasty. Dynasty, Yeah. I think I spelled it four different ways on Israel, like Q, S, H, C, A, like. I think it's the same one. I've just spelled it four different times in this episode. Recently, though, at this time, Alan Leong, despite being the dragon head, has been running scared for weeks now. His grown son has been driving home from work, waiting around. So the old man doesn't walk to his car alone. Leung has been telling people he thinks someone wants him dead. He even tells it to an FBI agent who floats the idea that maybe Leong should start wearing a wire. But he says no. Which makes what happens next pretty suspicious, because that afternoon, a guy walks into the shop, mask on, yells, robbery, and shoots him right in front of his wife. Obviously, robbery suspicious, but the guy does not take anything, which, as all good criminals know, defeats the purpose of a robbery. The young goes down, friend runs out the door. Shooter walks straight into Chinatown, disappears. The boss of the tong lies dead on the floor of a shop. Police cannot figure anything out, and the murder goes unsolved for years. But six months after he's gunned down, a new man slides into the dead man's chair and becomes the dragon head of the 150-year-old brotherhood, a dapper little guy, barely five feet and a half feet tall. Can you guess who it was? Sean Williams.

A

I don't know. You've really left me wondering. Could it be. No, no, no, no. You tell me. I don't want to get it wrong.

B

It is, in fact, Shrimp Boy who? Google a picture of him. He does look the paw. I mean, he's got the dragon tattoo. He really does look the part. He could play himself in a movie of being a gangster.

A

Yeah, he's got the John Waters mustache, which you mentioned. Which is.

B

Which is a great look for. I can't pull it off. But for an Asian gangster, it is a fantastic look. According testimony at a later trial, Leung had refused Shrimp boy a roughly $100,000 loan out of the tong's funds and wouldn't share the group's money the way Shrimp Boy wanted. Another gangster testifies that Shrimp Boy complained about Leung for two months before the killing, and the hit by the cooperator's account took three tries before it finally worked. One informant says Shrimp Boy gave the Order in a sauna in an Oakland massage parlor, telling him to, quote, coordinate with Raymond Lay to get rid of Alan Myung.

A

Wait, so it took three tries before they decided to get a guy to just to walk straight up to him and shout robbery and shoot him in the face. What? The first two attempts, like attacking him with a spoon in a crowded restaurant,

B

Think it was like, like Road Runner type stuff. Like they just painted a tunnel on a wall. Expect that he was going to walk into the tunnel and just fall down. I don't know. It doesn't go into details. Maybe they supported all their plans beforehand. Who knows? They did shoot him in front of two witnesses, which probably is like, that's not your first plan. You know that's not plan A, right?

A

No. No.

B

So at this time, in public, Shrimp Boy is this reformed community leader running a historic cultural brotherhood. In private, according to the government, he's running a criminal faction through the Tong. Money laundering, stolen high end liquor, Johnnie Walker Blue in Hennessy, stolen cigarettes, drugs moving in the background. Soon enough, the feds get suspicious. They send an undercover agent. His Persona is like a New York gangster, a finance guy looking to launder cash made through gambling. And he starts whining and dining Shrimp Boy. And this take, this is a years long process where he's wearing a wire. The agent uses the name David Jordan, and he presents himself as like a legit Cosa Nostra guy from the East Coast, a mob guy looking for ways to launder profits, do business, make connections in San Francisco. Now, Shrimp Boy is careful, right? He's not stupid. He's been around for decades. He's been locked up plenty. He's been to trial plenty. He's not some like two bit street thug, right? So on the recordings, he keeps trying to hold the actual crime at arm's length. He tells the agent he doesn't want to know the specifics. He doesn't want to get his hands dirty. Quote the SF gate. In prosecution documents alone, there are 25 instances where Chao said, that's Shrimp Boy, said he wants nothing to do with crime, and four times that, he discourages the undercover agent from illegal activity, including dealing heroin, his attorney said at a news conference last week. Chao also demurred when credited with introductions that led to alleged money laundering or drug deals with others. His attorney said, that's terrible, dude. I don't want to know. That's illegal stuff. Chow told the agent posing as a mafia. So on February 14, 2013, when asked what he thought, the agent, when asked what he what he thought the agent and George Nii, a member of the Geek Hong Tong and a Chao associate who now faces criminal charges. We're up to. But he does take money to launder through Tong. Millions, apparently. And he takes cash payments for himself. Tens of thousands instead, according to prosecutors. It's more like, I don't do crimes anymore. I don't want to know. I can introduce you to people if you want to thank me. Okay. But I don't want to be involved. I'm not touching anything. Also, here are the guys who can help. And then, of course, the envelope comes.

A

That's like. Like you in journalism now, isn't it?

B

Yeah, basically. I don't want to be involved. Give me envelope, like, cash. I will get involved, dude. The envelope thing in, like. It's just a. It's a cultural thing in. In with.

A

Yeah, it's.

B

Yeah, it's like there are some New York politicians that have gotten bagged up for just taking envelopes of money that are just, like, the funniest stories ever, where they pretend like it's not wrong and they're just getting, like, thousands in cash. It's. It's, like, hilarious stuff, dude, but it's a. It's a. It's a. It's a, you know, big thing. So this is, like a reoccurring thing that happens the other cut. Undercover agent gives shrimp boy money. After deals or introductions, Shrimp boy protests, I don't want it. I don't need it. He says he doesn't want it. Blah, blah, blah. Says it's legitimate, doesn't do it anymore. And then, according to the government, he ends up taking the money anyway.

A

That's. Poor guy. I mean, the whole world is just begging him to be a gangster, and all he wants to do is run his shady tongue.

B

You know, I am getting a little bit more sympathetic right now. It's are. It's like if you got bad habits.

A

Yeah.

B

Keeps trying to get you to do it, you're gonna. You know, someone just keeps sticking that vape in your face. Sean, when you're out at night, eventually you're gonna hit that vape. You know? He's like that. But with crime. Yeah. Doing crimes. It's like you and pints.

A

Oh, is it Right.

B

Okay, Ciao. I don't know. I couldn't think. I wanted to say something sleazier and dirtier, but I was like, I. You know, I'm gonna tone it down. That's not good. That's not funny. I should have said. I don't know. Heroin and strippers.

A

But heroin, strippers, yeah, it's always the heroin and the strippers. Here.

B

This guy, his explanation for the cash later on is that it's a gift, a show of respect between brothers, which, like I said, Chinese culture, kind of. Kind of big. He tells a reporter, paraphrasing closely. In our culture, we do that all the time. People give me red envelopes. My elders put money in my pocket. And his other explanation. This. This is real. Is that David Jordan was just an investor who wanted to help him publish his memoir. The memoir, by the way, is titled Son of the Underworld, later retitled something like Shrimp Boy. Life of Crime, Violence and Redemption Inside the Chinatown Underworld. So part of his defense for taking the laundered FBI money is that it was a book advance for my book about my crimes. As far as I know. There is a manuscript. It's unpublished, and I want it. So if you're out there, get it to us, please. Read the whole thing. And I want the right episodes for like a month and a half. It'll be great. But, yes, we are not finished yet, because the feds are going to get into the actual real crooks. And I'm not talking about those crooks in Congress on. I'm talking about the actual real crooks, the most corrupt out there. That's right. Local California politicians. The federal investigation that starts in Chinatown eventually overlaps with a political wheeler and dealer named Keith Jackson, who's wearing two hats at once. He's a paid consultant to Shrimp Boys Tong, and he's the chief fundraiser for a guy named. A politician Leland Yee's campaigns. Two completely separate worlds. Remember this? Chinatown, Tong, Sacramento politics. Jackson has a foot in each.

A

I also, I would genuinely like to know how Chinese families pick their Western names. Like, I had a kid in my class who was called Hinging, but he wanted to be called George. And I knew someone in New York who said her name was Peach. But in fairness, she did say that was because she had a big round face like a peach. That was the explanation she gave.

B

They're called nicknames, Sean. And they exist in other cultures as well.

A

Yeah, but that's so weird. I don't know, maybe I'm too tired. I'm not really getting it. But. Yeah, that was so funny when she said that. Anyway, moving on.

B

Yeah, let's move on, shall we? So this guy Yee is like a mover and a shaker type, you know, city politics, I guess. State 2. He becomes a bridge between undercover money, political access, campaign finance schemes, and Chinatown circles, which is important to section we have to make because if you read the headlines about shrimp boy, all this stuff gets mentioned. They're not kind of, they're not members, him and Yee of the same gang in Jackson, right. There's, there's not like it's not Senator Leland Yee, who eventually becomes a state senator, made guy in the shrimp boy family reporting for duty. You know, he's just like a guy who is connected to him through this guy Jackson, who is the former president of the San Francisco school board. Like I said, well known political consultant, fundraiser and associate of the Tong. So the person he raises money for is this guy, State Senator Leland Yee, who is like a serious prominent politician, San Francisco Democrat, leading advocate for gun control and for open, transparent government. Ironic.

A

All right.

B

Foreshadowing as well. So he's running for California Secretary of State at the time, but he doesn't have the cash. He had run for mayor of San Francisco in 2011, got fifth, walked away with like $70,000 in campaign debt. He has to clear that before he can mount the statewide run. He's desperate for cash. And that's how, According to a 137 page FBI affidavit, State Senator Lee Laney ends up brokering an arms deal with an undercover federal agent. Not just guns. The agent talks about wanting to spend up to two, two and a half million dollars on automatic weapons, M16 equivalents and shoulder fired missiles. And Yi, through his Fixer, Keith Jackson allegedly offers to connect the agent to an international arms dealer and walks him through the whole plan. They're going to source the weapons from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines, ship them into a US port. It might have been the milf, I don't know.

A

Yeah, who doesn't like the milf? I mean I've spent a lot of time.

B

Were they around back then?

A

Yeah, yeah, they would have been around. Yeah, they've been around for a long time.

B

I probably didn't think to. I don't think that was a term back then, in the 90s, 2000s. Yeah, I was going to say they probably didn't think to their Google reserves for them. What, what, what's it, what's the actual acronym stand for?

A

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

B

Yeah, yeah, guys Google them. Don't search for videos though, if you're under 18 and listen to this podcast.

A

There we go.

B

But yeah, they. Have they really been around that long?

A

Yeah, I mean they've been dicked over for that long. I think they're like 70s or 80s. Yeah, they've been around forever. Yeah.

B

Did you say they've been dicked over for that long? Aren't they, like, a jihadi group? Aren't you supposed to dick? Oh, dick, though. Okay. Dick the MILF dick. All right.

A

Yeah, that's good. No, no, that. That actually wasn't supposed to be a joke, but there we go. I'm gonna just end the shenanigans right now. It's formula 1984, Danny. Yeah, okay.

B

I'm in support. Taking over the milk. They're bad guys, Sean. They're not nice.

A

No, they're not. Well, they were nice to me, but, you know, that. That was.

B

Yeah, you're a sucker for anyone. Anyone who shakes her hand and gives you a terrible meal. Bland noodles. And you're like, oh, yeah, why don't we. Why don't we be nice to them? Okay. Yee. He also takes other cash for, like, boring corruption stuff. He. His later plea covers things like taking thousands of dollars in exchange for making calls, setting up meetings, providing an official state. California State Senate certificate honoring Shrimp Boys Tong as well.

A

I feel like we should have another episode just about this guy now. I mean, he's backing the Caliphate so he can clear his own debts. I mean, if nothing else, this is ballsy stuff.

B

So Shrimp Boy's whole role in this thing is that he basically, like, opens the door. You know, he's the one the agent walks through to get to Jackson, who then walks it over to Yi. But the stuff is so wild that I wanted to include it. And it does get wrapped up in the same investigation trial. So the feds, they get Shrimp Boy on tape. Obviously, that guy's wearing a wire. They get Ye on tape, they get dozens of people caught up in this vast, multifaceted criminal conspiracy. I think it's like five conspiracies at once in the charges. And on the morning of March 26, 2014, they move in and do raids across the Bay Area. In Sacramento, the FBI arrests State Senator Lee at his home. They get Shrimp Boy. They arrest Keith Jackson. There's 26 people. The indictment, I think, eventually names 29 defendants hit with everything from firearms trafficking, money laundering, murder for hire, drug distribution, contraband cigarettes, all sorts of fraud. They raid the Tong headquarters. Ye folds. He pleads guilty in 2015 to a racketeering conspiracy. February 2016, a federal judge sentences him to five years in prison. Keith Jackson, he gets nine years. Shrimp Boy, though, does not fold this time. He takes it to trial, and he takes the stand in his own defense for three days. And he's a compelling, charming witness. He admits the bad old days. He says, quote, I sold drugs. I robbed people from little hustler. I become the bigger hustler. But the murders, the ongoing racketeering. He says he never does that. He says he genuinely reformed in 2003. He says the cash from the agent was love and respect and a book investment, not payment for crimes. And he insists he didn't kill anyone.

A

Yeah, I don't know. I reckon a lawyer might have told him not to use the old love and respect line there, but he's doing. He's doing all right.

B

On January 8, 2016, he gets convicted of 162 counts. 162. Racketeering, that murder, murder and aid of racketeering, conspiracy to murder another former associate who'd been found shot dead in 2013. Money laundering, trafficking stolen goods, all of it. He stares straight ahead, shows no reaction as the count after count after count comes in of him being guilty. Several of his co defendants had actually flipped and testified against him. He gets sentenced to two life terms. As of this recording. I believe he's serving life without the possibility of parole at a federal penitentiary. I think USP Terre Hawked in Indiana. Pretty gnarly one. His memoir is still unpublished. Locked up under a restraining order because the government doesn't want him profiting from it until they recover a couple hundred grand in seized assets and fines. But the government and Trim boy, most likely, if I had to guess, they just definitely want me and Sean. Sean specifically to profit off the story. So hit that Patreon, folks, and get us that manuscript. And if you made it this far. Look, we weren't. We weren't batting a thousand. Yeah, we can't win, everyone, right? We weren't batting a thousand. The neurons weren't firing. It's been a long couple weeks. The Knicks won. I've been going to the World Cup. Sean was in Amsterdam doing God knows what.

A

Love those tiny little bit of bolum.

B

Yep. Hopefully Dale has cleaned it up enough that it's not as painful for you guys to listen to as it was for us to hear ourselves talk. And next week we'll bring it up.

A

That'll do.

B

That would do. Yeah. Just apologize the entire time for how bad it wasn't that maybe it was. I don't know. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. And yeah, shrimp way. Sam, Ryan Reynolds here from IT Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless wall way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world stop with Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com specialoffer.