How Triad gangs link bright lights of Hong Kong to the streets of the West Midlands

Yet it was a divide bridged by the world’s most ruthless and feared criminal organisations as its foot soldiers attempted to gain sway in the underworld by unprecedented savagery.

The Triads succeeded, say former detectives and gangland experts. Those first pioneers spread the syndicate’s tentacles to the UK.

They are here, among us. They are part of an increasingly international criminal portfolio that includes urban gangs, Albanian mobsters, the Russian mafia and even Cosa Nostra.

They are here carrying the initiation marks and scars of the order’s more modern incarnations, the Wo Shing Wo and Wo On Lok factions. But the first tentative steps towards UK conquest were made by one of the oldest and most infamous brotherhoods, 14K Triad.

They are unseen and secretive, but the Tongs and Triads are here, among us, gradually tightening their grip since first arriving in Birmingham, London and Liverpool’s post-war Chinese quarters.

And an orgy of street violence across the Irish Sea 45 years ago provided blood-stained proof the Triads menace had spread to Walsall.

When the pitch battle on Dublin’s Middle Abbey Street had subsided, two lay dead, another blinded for life, many more injured. One report of the riot alleged severed fingers were found at the scene. A newspaper likened the scene to an abattoir.

Crowds who had gathered outside the city’s Adelphi and Curzon cinemas on that warm July evening scattered in panic as a power struggle between rival Triad gangs broke into terrifying turf war. Armed mobsters hacked, slashed and stabbed rivals, with the arsenal of weapons later recovered including a .22 rifle, meat cleavers, kitchen knives and meat cleavers.

“It was much worse than any Kung Fu movie we’ve ever shown,” the Curzon’s manageress told reporters. In fact, many bystanders initially believed a Kung Fu movie was being filmed: “It wasn’t until I saw the blood gushing from someone’s throat that I realised this was for real,” said one witness.

The addresses of some of those allegedly taking part in the rampage surprised detectives, they turned the investigation’s focus to the West Midlands. Kieran Fagan, former Irish Times reporter turned author, revealed.

One was from Walsall, two others had Birmingham connections.

The Triads are among us, here in the West Midlands, and they have walked in the shadows of our towns and cities for years.

At first, a meagre number of mobsters chanced their arm in Britain’s illicit red light and drug industries. A trickle.

The 1974 launch of the Independent Commission Against Corruption of Hong Kong – introduced to weed out police officers whose palms had been greased by Triads – put the squeeze on gangs on their home turf.

They sought new horizons. The tap turned. The trickle became a steady flow. They could see huge profits were to be made from Britian’s growing drugs problem and wanted a piece of the action.

Follow the first brown sugar heroin trails from the Golden Triangle’s near blindingly colourful poppy fields and one will take you to the Black Country. More specifically, a Black Country eatery.

In June, 1972, Walsall restaurant boss Li San Shun, aged 53, and worker Li Ma Fat spirited 50 packets of the narcotic into this country, their Class A cache hidden in a heavy, quilted blanket.

They were snared by Customs and Excise and jailed: Shun for nine years, Fat for eight.

In Peter Walsh’s superb book 'Drug War – The Secret History', Brian Clark, the Customs narco buster who nailed the pair, said: "It was the first seizure, the first charge, the first successful prosecution. I was just pleased that I'd pulled my weight."

It’s the secrecy surrounding Triad gangs and the rites imbedded in their criminal culture that have made them so hard to infiltrate. The Fu Manchu style myths muddy the waters.

John Plimmer, former head of West Midlands CID, was among a team who attempted to nail ringleaders in the 1970s. They were thwarted by smiling faces, but sealed lips.

“They were very, very covert, that was the problem,” John said.

“There were always strong rumours Triads in Birmingham city centre were putting the arm on various establishments, but you could never get a witness to come forward and complain.

“There was information that a certain person was Triad, but nothing tangible. No one would say anything, no one would complain. That was the issue.”

The Sicilian Mafia ruled by the “omerta” code of silence. Triads instilled an inscrutable silence in their followers and victims.

And they’ve honed their brutal trade over centuries, with the first Triad secret societies emerging in ninth century feudal China to protect families. Those clans began to weld into a single, powerful entity in the 1800s, with the aim of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty.

Back then they were looked on as cultural institutions, now they are a global menace.

In Martin Booth’s book The Dragon Syndicate, one UN source dubbed them “the greatest potential criminal threat the world has ever known”.

Here, former Detective Superintendent Jack Dees described them as “durable, flexible, well-resourced and well established... and a major threat to the UK economy and human rights.”

Four major Triads gangs are believed to be based in Britain, growing fat on a gamut of criminal activities including drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, illegal immigration, loan sharking and counterfeiting.

Brains have replaced brawn in an increasingly hi-tec underworld arena. During the 2020 Euros, law enforcement agencies from 28 countries united to tackle a sports betting racket run from Hong Kong, driven by Triads.

Interpol stated: "While most of us were watching the UEFA European Football Championship as simple fans, hundreds of specialised officers across 28 countries were targeting organised crime groups looking to earn millions from illegal gambling and related money laundering activities.

"Interpol’s Operation Soga VIII led to thousands of raids and the arrest of some 1,400 suspects across Asia and Europe. Authorities seized 7.9 million dollars in cash, as well as computers and mobile phones connected to nearly 465 million dollars in bets.

"Hong Kong Police detained more than 800 suspects, including the alleged kingpin of a Triad-controlled bookmaking syndicate, seizing nearly 2.7 million dollars in cash and records detailing hundreds of millions in bets, making it one of their most successful operations against illegal gambling ever."

The Triads’ grubby fingers are in many pies. In the West Midlands, they’ve been linked to the booming back-room fake tobacco business, a multi-million pound black market.

Their codes have been westernised to suit the new hunting grounds. Back in 1995, the Police Superintendents’ Association annual conference was warned British teenagers were being lured into the empire. In Britain, being Chinese was no longer a pre-requisite to Triad membership.

Detective Inspector Andrew Rennison, head of The Met’s Chinese Intelligence unit, said: “The teenagers enjoy the danger and are attracted by the gang's violent image. We know who the leaders are, and the main players, but...witnesses are very difficult to come by and are usually frightened.”

The rank of those within a gang is denoted by numbers and every number begins with 4, a digit believed to be a powerful planet symbol: four seasons, four elements, four compass points. 489 is the leader, Shan Chu. 426 is the number of the soldiers, Red Poles. The administrators and book-keepers – White Paper Fan – are 415.

It is a complex criminal code and sometimes rival gangs’ numbers collide showering violence.

A 2010 summer street brawl in Manchester’s Chinatown was suspected to be the eruption of simmering tension between Wo Shing Wo and 14K cartels. During just 50 seconds of ferocious fighting, two men were stabbed.

At Manchester Crown Court, Judge Andrew Blake said: "Quite what it was all about, perhaps only those involved truly know.

"It may have been an old-fashioned turf war. It may have been a generational thing or it may have been an eruption of anger by the old guard against those who proved insusceptible to attempts to recruit them."

The Triads are here, they are among us. That was illustrated in 2012 after sickening footage of a “vicious, unrelenting and prolonged” attack was shown in all its gory glory to a council licensing committee. The victim – hit with an iron bar, a bottle smashed over his head – was believed to be a Triad target. The establishment, The China Court karaoke bar, Ladywell Walk, Birmingham, had its licence removed.

Police told the committee bar staff shook hands with the attackers as they left and even held open the door for them. They were cleaning the scene when officers arrived and initially insisted CCTV cameras inside the business were broken. They were not.

City centre licensing officer Pc Abdul Rohoman pulled no punches: “These are serious failings, the only way West Midlands Police feel that these premises can operate safely is to put a management team in place which cannot be intimidated by the Triads.

“We do not believe this can be achieved by a Chinese management as there is clear intimidation and fear within the Chinese community and the Triads.”

That statement, made in a public local authority meeting, is testimony to the power of Triads in the West Midlands.

Their tactics and appearance may have changed, but they have not softened. They are here, among us and competing for supremacy with the nation’s most powerful super villains.