Triad (criminalistics)
| Triad | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Chinese name | |
| Long characters | 三合會 |
| Abbreviation | 三合会 |
| Standard Chinese | |
| Pinyin | Sānhehui |
| Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | Saam 1 hap 6 wui 2 |
| Vietnamese name | |
| Quốc Ngữ | Hi Tam Hoàng |
| Hán tự | 會 三皇 |
Triads ( Chinese 三合會 / 三合会 , Pinyin Sānhéhuì - "Society of Triads, Society of Three Harmonies") are associations in the field of organized crime , named after their symbol, the triangle for "heaven, earth and humanity" originated in ancient China at the time of the Qing (1644–1912). In the press and also in literature, the triads are sometimes referred to as the “Chinese Mafia ”. They have their headquarters in Hong Kong , Vietnam , Macau , Taiwan and China , but also operate far from their country of origin, for example in the USA or in Europe , since the 1930s in Great Britain . It is estimated that there are over 5,000 triads in China , often making alliances with one another.
The symbol of the triads is the dragon (see Yakuza ), which, according to the Chinese understanding, embodies wisdom and power. The triad members use secret symbols to identify each other and communicate with each other by finger or voice code.
Great triads
Examples of triad organizations in Hong Kong are:
- 14K Triad (30,000 members, 35 clans)
- Luen Group (more than 12000 members)
- Shui Fong (30,000 members)
- Sun Yee On (50,000 members)
- Tai Huen Chai - Big Circle Gang (5000 to 10,000 members)
- Wo Hop To (50,000 members)
- Wo Shing Wo (40,500 members, 10 clans)
Examples of triad organizations in Taiwan are:
- Bamboo Union
- Celestial Way
- Shih Hai Bang - Four Seas Gang (several 10,000 members, worldwide with a focus on Taiwan)
history
The old triad led their history like on secret societies Chaozhous (obsolete Chiu Chau) back in which loyal supporters of the Chinese Ming dynasty allied (1368-1644) to protest against the ruling from 1644 in China Manchurian Qing Dynasty (1644- 1912) fight. In addition, the triads also campaigned for the Chinese citizens at that time. Whether this is fictitious, like similar patriotic stories about the Mafia, or whether violent patriotic secret societies developed criminal activities to finance their activities (also for example ETA and IRA extorted and extorted so-called taxes or protection money) and ultimately degenerated into criminal gangs stay open. The triads have long been exclusively highly organized criminal organizations. The triads lived in China in the 18th and 19th centuries in a fruitful coexistence with a corrupt civil service. Originally the triads were called "The White Lotus".
British opium trade
The great age of the triads began in 1772, when the British under Warren Hastings began their colony India from opium from silver to China to sell. Since this had been forbidden in China since 1729, only the secret societies came into question as large buyers, with whom the opium trade, covered by corrupt officials, was carried out to the Chinese opium dens . The main trading center was initially the canton , the only port open to Europeans. After the emperor reaffirmed the ban on opium in 1800, it was no longer transported to the port, but handed over to a smuggler fleet of the Triads in front of the port. The company Jardine, Matheson & Co. also began smuggling into ports closed to Europeans from 1821, which secured it the predominance of the 46 opium companies and almost 50 opium shipping companies in Canton with a 60 percent market share. This expansion also expanded the power and wealth of the criminal organizations that sold the drug in China.
Opium war
The fact that sales rose from an average of 340 tons in the year between 1811 and 1820 to an average of 1,841 tons in the year between 1829 and 1839, and the tremendous outflow of silver that caused severe economic upheaval led to a serious attempt by China to stop the flood of opium. Starting in 1840, the British government de facto forced the opening of China to opium imports with the First Opium War , which in 1842 had to cede Hong Kong with the Treaty of Nanking and open five other port cities, including Shanghai , to trade. Opium was formally forbidden, so that everywhere the triads remained main trading partners.
In 1858, China had to open its ports in an uncontrolled manner, allow all foreigners to enter the country unchecked and guarantee freedom of trade in all products. The Tianjin Treaty of June 1858 expressly permitted the import of opium. In 1880 opium imports reached a record level of 6,500 tons to supply 20 million addicts, whereby the Chinese government was now involved through an import tax.
Now the emperor ordered opium to be grown in the country, and by the turn of the century Chinese domestic production was 22,000 tons, while the import share from India fell to 3,500 tons. Since 1880 morphine has been imported on a massive scale , and since 1900 the Bayer product heroin - to cure opium addiction - has been in the German colony of Tsingtau .
The opium business was also an important basis for financing the warlords who emerged after the collapse of imperial rule.
Shanghai, the Green Gang and the Red Gang
The city of Shanghai was mainly ruled by two triads, the Red Gang, a partner of the British company Jardine, Matheson & Co and the British secret service, led by Chang Hsiao-lin , and the Green Gang, who worked with the French in the drug and secret service business worked together and was run by "pockmark" Huang . The Tong and the League of Heaven and Earth also existed.
The main business was the so-called antiopium pills. 10,000 pills were made from two ounces (2 x 31 grams) of pure heroin, 1/2 ounce of strychnine , one ounce of quinnine (quinine) , five ounces of caffeine , 48 ounces of lactose, and ten ounces of sugar . Huge sales were achieved. In 1927, IG-Farben delivered almost one and a half tons of strychnine with a single order.
The intermediary of the two secret societies and the original head of the Green Gang was Tu Yueh-sheng . In 1925, after Sun Yat-sen's death , these three gang leaders joined the Kuomintang and supported the May 30th Movement .
In 1926 the gangs united under the leadership of the triumvirate and Tu Yueh-sheng founded his own union with the “General Progressive Association”.
Worldwide activities
The areas of influence of the other two were divided up in such a way that the Hu-angs were assigned the East (viewed from China), especially America, and the Changs the West, especially Europe.
In 1935 , after the Luxol factory in Elberfeld had closed and a Jewish smuggling ring in Vienna had been smashed and the supply stalled for several years, the US criminal Meyer Lansky secured large deliveries of heroin from Shanghai, which were manufactured in the heroin refineries in Chang and via liaison men from Huang to the USA.
After the end of the civil war, which ended with the victory of the communists, production in the so-called " Golden Triangle " was built up by Kuomintang troops who had evaded there, and from there the Triads traded around the world via Bangkok. In Europe, Amsterdam became the most important import port.
Southeast Asia, Saigon
Opium addiction was also widespread among the Chinese communities in the cities of Southeast Asia. Accordingly, not only as exploiters of prostitutes , but also as opium dealers within the communities, the triads were everywhere strong. There were six clans in Saigon alone. After the 4,000 opium shops in Saigon had to close in 1952 , the Bình-Xuyên- Gang dominated the drug business and formed the power base of Emperor Bảo Đại . The opium trade was controlled by the chief of the Bình Xuyên, General Le Van Vien. The opium was flown under the responsibility of Colonel Roger Trinquier by a group of Corsicans using their private airline from the Meo growing areas to Vietnam.
The power of this gang was broken because Emperor Bảo Đại relied on the French. The representative of American interests Colonel Edward Lansdale (whom Graham Greene portrayed in his book The Quiet American ) supported the anti-French and pro-American Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm with $ 8.6 million . He had some army units under Colonel Văn Minh brought to Saigon, which fought and defeated the Bình Xuyên. In this context, there were also attacks by the French on the Americans, which were responded to with violence. In 1955, after negotiations with US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in Paris , Emperor Bảo Đại was deposed and the French finally withdrew from Vietnam.
General Nhu, Diệm's brother-in-law, relied on the Red Band. Under their boss, Chang alias "Red Nose", they ruled most of the opium huts and brothels in the harbor area. For a 15 percent share in sales for Nhu, the Corsicans under Bonaventura Francisi (cousin of the King of the Game Palace of the “French Connection”) now supplied the Red Gang under the general's protectorate. Before that, the Saigon Red Gang had laboriously obtained their material from Laos and Bangkok. While the repression of the opposition in Saigon by the iron hand of the Red Gang was very effective, the government's overt corruption and cooperation with rural gangsters drove many patriotic Vietnamese into the arms of the communists. That is why the USA had Diệm and Nhu executed in 1963, but could not find a reliable partner for a strict military dictatorship.
After the Viet Cong blew up the US officers' club in Saigon on Christmas Eve 1964 and a hole in the protective wall of the American embassy on March 29, 1965 , the aim was to revive the Nhus system. The choice fell on the General of the Air Force Nguyon Cao Kỳ and his executor General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan , who later became world famous for shooting a man suspected of being a Viet Cong in front of the camera. By the end of 1965, Loan had integrated four of Saigon's six syndicates into his system of rule. The Corsicans left the opium transport to the South Vietnamese Air Force , which was supported by the CIA airlines Air America , Continental Air Service and Lao Development Air Service .
This group got into a conflict with a group around the president and head of the military junta Nguyễn Văn Thiệu , which won in 1968. From 1970 onwards, heroin was also sold to American soldiers , of whom 20 percent were addicted by the summer of 1971. In 1972 about 500,000 American soldiers were stationed in Vietnam, of whom more than 100,000 were heroin addicts. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. With the end of the Vietnam War, the last Kuomintang troops, together with the fleeing Meo, moved their headquarters to northern Thailand, next to the Shan and Karen .
Macau
In addition to the global drug business and the blackmailing of Chinese business people, triads are an important mainstay in Macau's casinos .
literature
- Hans-Georg Behr : world power drug. The business of addiction. Econ-Verlag 1980, ISBN 3-430-11283-4 , pages 151-168, 190-200.
- Roger Faligot, Rémi Kauffer: The master of shadows. Kang Sheng and the Chinese Secret Service 1927–1987 . Ehrenwirth, Munich 1988, pp. 41-48, especially pp. 46-47.
- Gustave Schlegel: "The Hung League or Heaven-Earth-League", Batavia, Lange & Co., 1866.
- Berndt Georg Thamm : Dragons threaten the world: Chinese organized crime (triads). Verlag Deutsche Polizeiliteratur, Hilden / Rhld. 1996, ISBN 3-8011-0323-4 .
- JSM Ward and WG Stirling: "The Hung Society or The Society of Heaven and Earth", 3 volumes, The Baskerville Press Ltd., London 1925.
- Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history . Volume 1: 1911-1949 . Longtai, Giessen (ie) Heuchelheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-938946-14-5 .
- Thomas Weyrauch: Refugee Germany: Migrants from the People's Republic of China: Background, determinants and motives. Project (Edition Cathay), Dortmund 1995, ISBN 3-928861-38-7 .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Matthew B. Christensen: Geek in China: Discovering the Land of Alibaba, Bullet Trains and Dim Sum. Tuttle Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4629-1836-2 p. 14 .
- ↑ GEO - Everything on Red: The Game Continues ( Memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), In: www.geo.de, accessed July 30, 2019