How New York Chinatown Gangs Actually Work | How Crime Works | Insider

my name is Mike Moy I was a former member of the Chinatown gang I later became an NYPD cop and this is how crime works you had so many guns that's hidden all over the place secret tunnels and you have snipers up in the safe houses a crazy person wouldn't even dare to go to Chinatown because even a crazy person they feel pain they fear death so as far as being a Chinatown gang you're either going to wind up in jail it's going to be some outcome that's not going to be good [Music] [Applause] so I was only 16 when I joined the Gang and it was one of the notorious Chinatown gangs during that time there were a lot of Rivals in the 1970s the ghost shadows and the flying dragons those were the two main gangs eventually you had the white tigers the donghorn gang the full Chang the Green dragons and the BTK the violence between the gangs I wouldn't say it's because of territory I would say it's because of respect any form of disrespect wants a killing a shooting remember these kids are young 13 15 16 year old kids all they want is for people to show my little respect maybe it's because they insecure about themselves or they have a low self-esteem it's all about respect and a lot of people died because of disrespect when we were in the gang most of us at one time or another had some sort of interaction with the Italian mafia even I myself in my early 20s were dealing with guys in their 40s and 50s but these Italian young Italian teenage kids they're the ones who were a problem to us and there were some shootings where some of our guys would kill some of them they walk around with their bats and canes and want to be tough and they didn't know who they were messing with because we were never afraid you know we were like we felt well Invincible [Music] [Applause] during my teen years and we would do extortion Street robberies petty stuff Paddy crying but then as I got older got into my 20s started selling marijuana dealing with counterfeit money credit card for stolen credit cards from a source that we had in the post office I opened gambling houses a gambling house that we hung out in on Canal Street right next to the Rosemary there in the basement we would have poker machines from the Italians they would put the polka machines in there sometimes we'll have poker tables pikeout tables when we collect the percentage so that was one of the most profitable business I had and also a bootleg video tapes back in those days the VCR tapes the show up other kung fu movies they made me a lot of money too all we had to do was get a bunch of VCRs and copy those tapes so we're talking about the probably around that time probably 80s and and 90s after the Italians lost the heaven business in the Pizza Connection trial yeah there was a vacuum and the Chinese took over the Chinese were able to import high quality heroin into Chinatown they dominated that business for a short while just imagine how much money was circulating in Chinatown during those days in just a few black radius I mean you had cab drivers waiters waitresses benefiting from all that money even Factory workers because the gangsters would spend that money into Chinatown yeah they extorted from the stores but they weren't out there to put the stores out of business how the media portray us all the business in Chinatown Was flourishing during that time look at Chinatown back then it never sleep it's open like 24 hours you get the gang members go into a restaurant during the Chinese New Year's doing whatever holidays and the owner is going to give them a little red envelope it's just a little piece of what they're giving less than what they probably pay for the garbage disposal right to the Italians you know we did protect the neighborhood and I even have personal experiences protecting the businesses you know doing what I needed to do back in those days to protect the business owners from getting bullied by people who didn't even know better some of those people remember me for the rest of their life [Music] [Applause] person that you least expect to be a gang member and that's the person that's carrying the gun so when we travel in a group for example we go into a pool hall and we're shooting a pool there'll be a kid in the corner of the pool hall watching over us and that's the kid that has the gun there could be a targeted hit where okay you're gonna go get this person and kill this person yes but a lot of times I went in the streets you can't control what they do it's very easy to get it gone back in those days I know in the 70s they had a source with the Italians getting guns from these hands in the 80s and 90s it wasn't that difficult to go out of state and buy a gun to show your ID and you just in the flea market and you just buy a bunch of antique guns [Music] [Applause] safe house are located all over we had safe houses in Brooklyn by Williamsburg one by Midwood Queens by Woodhaven so we had several places where we hold our meetings at any given time they could be as much as a 10 15 people in that apartment sleeping there living there we kept it very low key a side entrance so it doesn't appear to be a lot of people going in and out so the runners will go out there and buy whatever's necessary whether it's food or or drinks or whatever they need generally the police wouldn't even care about these things what they care about or guns but luckily uh we hit our guns in a way where the police couldn't find it one of the ways what we did was we were on the second floor so we were tying a string and lowered down to the first floor so what you see was a string on the floor but who would expect when you pull up that string there's a gun there are so many secret tunnels and places for them to hide guns as far as the tunnels you had them on Mastery Bayonne Street Canal Street power Street Doyle Street like these places those tunnels was used as a form of Escape after you do a shooting you just run into the tunnel and just come out from the other side of the street that's why there's so many cold cases in Chinatown [Music] [Applause] I was 16 years old when I joined the gang yeah I saw it as a way to protect you from the bullies during my years in school I was like the only Asian kid so I was a victim of bullying how did I become a member of the gang initially I started hanging out with them when they started to trust me they know I was able to do things for them that's when I got accepted and they would give you a nickname such as like big head and say hey you have a big head so we're going to call you big head as onion head nickname came from his hairstyle you know the newspaper and journals claimed that onion heads nickname came from a few betray him he'll give you tears that's why they call him onion head but that is not true he looked like an onion head with his hair cut back in those days they tried to give me a nickname I put a stop to it I'm that type of person I like to stay under the radar keep a low profile and I was fun about it and they respected that but what they call me behind my back that's another story and we did an initiation ritual together with two other members we knew down and we lit up the incense we pull wine in front of the general Quan and to give them an offering in the wine without blood we pricked our fingers after the initiation we felt like a certain Bond Like A brotherhood [Music] [Applause] what the times would call probably associate we would call what the times would call A Street Soldier we would call them matzai like a captain a daima on the boss that would be a Dilo which is Big Brother The Leader Dilo die and that would be the guy at the top so how does one become a Dilo start out as a soldier and if you have the qualities of a dialogue such as The Gift of Gab you have the Charisma then you have these kids following you you spend money on them and once you have a crew you become a dialogue the dialogue would give the money to the daima that goes to pay for everything as far as entertainment food expenses the safe house paying the rent the money trickles down to us unlike the Italians where the money trickles up they have to pay for our loyalty what we do in the streets we basically enhance their reputation [Music] [Applause] a lot of people have the misconception that tongs Triads and gangs are the same thing it's not the tongues will former gang members in Chinatown who later try to become a legitimate Enterprise Association trying to help the new immigrants coming into this country but you have a handful of bad apples that Associated themselves with the gangs and they use the gangs to do the Dirty Work the flying dragons was under the hipsing tong Association the gold Shadows was under the online association and the Tongan gang was under the Tongan Association the flying dragons had control of Pell Street Doyle Street and later on they moved on to Canal Street and Grand Street the gold Shadows had control of my street Bayon Street the white tigers went to Queens Elmhurst later on the dongwon gang was created and they took control of East Broadway through the Chinatown gangs still exist today yes they do but they operate differently a lot different than what I grew up with there isn't a dialogue so to speak there isn't a a big leader like how we had they keep it totally underground back in those days we dealt with a lot of federal crimes crimes that want the attention of the FBI the NYPD didn't have the resources to take on the Asian gangs they didn't even have the translators available to translate that they were just there to help the FBI but it was the FBI that cracked these cases [Music] yeah it was around 1993. the FBI started rounding up a lot of people and that's when it started falling apart the people at the top was getting locked up so the people at the bottom didn't know what to do most of the gang members were arrested by the feds or they were killed or in prison that's when I made the transition and in order to make that transition to go into NYPD it had to be like a light switch it was like an on and off switch it was either All or Nothing you know I grew up watching the weather cold Jack what happened to Stephen McDonald if you follow his story he forgave the kid who shot him and when Stephen McDonald mentioned that this kid was a part of his environment did a lot of self-reflection and I see that how I grew up you know it made me who I am and maybe I need to change so I joined the NYPD in 1995 but the gang was always there for me up until that day when I took the oath I left everything behind I was assigned to work in Chinatown so I didn't expect to be working in Chinatown my old stomping grounds as a gang member and that was a little bit nerve-wracking because what will happen if I bump into my rivals or my fellow gang mates and it did happen I bumped into my rivals in uniform I bump into my former gang mates in uniform even when I was assigned to the detective squad and I got promoted many years later some of these guys came out from prison and I was assigned to arrest them some of them can make a living so they started doing home invasions and robberies robbing stores and taxi cabs and whatnot they started in getting involved with different type of rackets now they didn't get involved with the hell in trade it anymore because the feds were watching that so they got involved with other things like the transportation business the dollar Vans the bus going out of state they still did the gambling houses and the prostitution houses were one differently as opposed to back in those days where you would go into a prostitution house and you would see 10 15 even 20 girls so what they did was they broke it up into like an apartment you know and they would only have like maybe one or two girls the gangs were operating a lot differently nobody wanted to call themselves a Dilo anymore [Music] [Applause] I love the NYPD NYPD gave me everything I have you know for all those years it's just that I had a bad experience while working with some bullies in the NYPD that left a bad taste in my mouth so it was time for me to leave I left July of 2021. after over 26 years I started this channel called Chinatown gang stories to get these stories from former gang members who lived a life because there's a lot of misinformation out there a lot of the information came from non-asians movies authors and documentaries my channel will give you an accurate description of what really happened in Chinatown back in those days what that I learned from being in the Gang just don't do it between social media like the technology cell phones and plate readers DNA facial recognition big brothers watching everything you do so there's no place in today's society for gangs anymore all right [Applause]

Channel: Insider

Views: 1,936,566

Keywords: Insider

Id: 2osXEixd3kM

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023