ecdp0054 - Understanding Asian Organized Crime

UNDERSTANDING ASIAN ORGANIZED CRIME

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCY

Acquiring and Analyzing Information - Conducting Investigations and Collecting Evidence [Types of Investigation]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Southeast Asia has the greatest concentration of people on the planet, and several cultures more than 2,000 years old. With a population of 1 billion, it is not surprising that Chinese organized crime groups are a controlling influence in a great deal of the organized criminal activity around the world. Often called enterprise crime, traditional Asian organized crime is connected with white collar crimes, such as money laundering, credit card fraud, software piracy, and illegal imports and exports of otherwise legal goods, as well as alien smuggling, and drug trafficking from the Golden Triangle into Europe and North America.

THE TIES THAT BIND

Organized crime specialists say most Asian-origin organized crime relies on guanxi relationships or their equivalents. Described as the "glue" of Chinese culture, guanxi -- pronounced gwan-chee -- loosely translates into English as "connections" or "networks." Guanxi is a complete social system, based on the ties between people related by blood or marriage, who speak the same dialect or who come from the same region of China, Hong Kong or other Chinese-speaking countries.

The concept of guanxi makes it nearly impossible to refuse a request of any kind from a friend, acquaintance or family member. If you have made a request in the past, you must then honour a request in future and if you cannot meet a request made by someone with whom you have a guanxi relationship, you are obligated to find someone who can. In this way, a request for help often sets off a chain reaction, as each person to whom the request is passed, calls in a favour owed to them.

Most Asian cultures have an equivalent to guanxi, and these close and complicated relationships can make it difficult to investigate and track illegal behaviour in Asian communities. Links and favours can stretch across oceans, and are firmly based in a silent code of honour. Tradition can take precedence over comparatively new, Western style laws. "Law enforcement in Asia is trying to displace a 2,000-year-old entrenched social system with codified criminal law," explains Willard Myers, of the Centre for the Study of Asian Enterprise Crime in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "That is no easy task."

Many enterprise crime activities emanating from Southeast Asia are fronted by apparently legitimate businesses, run from behind by large crime groups. Rather than focusing only on the business activities of the well-known triads -- the traditional approach to tackling Asian enterprise crime -- Myers advises a guanxi-based approach. He tries to trace illegal international business practices or smuggling operations back through the trail of people involved. "There are no borders for this type of crime, and it isn't like traditional crime," Myers told a group of Asian crime investigators at a Criminal Intelligence Service Canada conference last summer. "You can't look for the business committing the crime and try to combat it by shutting down the organization. As soon as you break one piece of it, they will be shut down and gone and you are no further ahead."

Willard says understanding how Asian immigrant communities organize themselves and being aware of the relationships within those communities, can help solve crimes committed on North American soil. "You almost have to pull out a map, see where the people you are investigating come from in Asia, and look for the relationships," Willard details. "Then ask yourself: 'If this person is involved, then who else is likely to be involved as well?'"

FAMILY AND THE GANG CULTURE

Understanding Asian culture can go a long way toward helping investigators solve crimes within immigrant communities in Canada or the US. Family is a very important concept in all Asian cultures, but family might not mean the same thing to the investigator as it does to the suspects being investigated. In the Chinese community, for example, guanxi relationships are as strong as blood ties, and in most Asian communities the extended family -- and the use of terms like brother or uncle -- can stretch to include people not related in the strict, North American sense of the word. Understanding this can save an investigator a great deal of time and confusion

Most organized crime in Asia is tied to a small number of carefully controlled gangs or triads. Those groups -- and their off-shoots and imitators -- reach as far as North America. Organized gangs provide a stable and solid environment and a feeling of family for their members -- an important tie for some immigrants who have left their blood relatives behind.

One spin-off of the large Asian organized crime groups, is a growing number of Asian youth street gangs. These loosely organized and well-armed groups are associated with drug use and drug trafficking, prostitution, and violent crimes such as home invasions and drive-by shootings. They may identify themselves through tattoos and colours like other street gangs, and sometimes act as thugs, carrying out the dirty work at street level for the large Asian enterprise crime networks, pocketing a small share of the proceeds of crime.

Obviously not all Asian immigrants join gangs, but those who do find familiarity, support and a stable source of income in the midst of a foreign, English-speaking culture. Immigrants involved in organized crime activities in Asia often carry the activity with them to North America. Indeed, some move to North America for the express purpose of expanding the business.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FACE

Face is a feeling of immense self-pride. According to Sgt Bill Livesay, an Asian organized crime specialist from the Montreal Urban Community Police Force, who worked with Criminal Intelligence Service Canada until recently, the value of face is a result of thousands of years of history. "For centuries, many Asian communities endured hardship, and no matter how hard people worked, providing for their families was a constant struggle," says Livesay. "The only thing many people owned was pride in themselves, and this pride assumed an importance equal to life itself."

The principle of face is learned early in Asian cultures, and is entrenched by the time a person reaches their teens. People struggle to maintain their sense of face, and to ensure they are constantly providing others with opportunities to maintain their own face. Causing someone else to lose face is cause for personal and community shame. Losing face can be extremely humiliating; there are documented cases of suicide, as a result.

It is important to understand the behaviour associated with giving and maintaining face, in order to work effectively with the Asian community. Displaying negative emotions, such as fear, anger or sadness, is not only a sign of personal weakness, but may also disturb other people and could cause them to lose face. The effort to present oneself as clam and collected can be misinterpreted by police and judges as a lack of remorse, or as proof that an incident was not as serious as reported. When giving testimony in court, an Asian witness may be reluctant to make eye contact with a judge or lawyer, and may speak in hushed tones; both are signs of respect in the Asian culture, but mean something completely different in North American culture.

TIPS FOR GIVING OR MAINTAINING FACE

When developing a relationship with an Asian, take your time. There is an old Chinese proverb which states: "Never talk business before the third cup of tea." If you are offered tea, accept it, and if you are not offered another cup, it is time to leave.
Show respect to any elders present when you enter or leave a home or place of business, even if they are not included in the conversation.
Separate the actions from the person; "I don't dislike you, but I cannot accept what you did."
Attempt to involve the family of suspects or accused persons as much as possible. The actions of an individual affect the entire family.
Use two hands when passing anything to an Asian person, including your business card; using one hand can be interpreted as a sign of disrespect for the receiver. Many Asians will shake hands with both hands, as well.
Be straightforward and do not make any promises you cannot meet; remember that all favours must be repaid and all promises must be kept.
Never interview witnesses or victims in front of family, friends or employees; they will be very hesitant to report anything that makes them look bad or is embarrassing.

(source: Criminal Intelligence Service Canada)

THE LUXURY CAR CONNECTION

In a country where getting enough food to feed an entire family can be a challenge, or where trade embargoes or government policies limit access to foreign goods, a BMW, Mercedes Benz or Lexus is a definite status symbol. Organized crime groups around the world are cashing in on the vanity of the privileged class, stealing cars in North America -- often straight from the new car lots -- and selling them at inflated prices on the black markets in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Asian organized crime groups and street gangs are becoming increasingly involved in the new trend of luxury car theft. It is relatively easy for an individual in Asia to arrange, through contacts in North America, to have street gang members or a corrupt salesperson, steal a specific type of car from a dealership or owner. The vehicle is then secreted in a large shipping container, sealed, picked up by a shipping company and placed on a boat bound for Asia. Some of the largest container shipping companies in the world have been linked to the triads in Asia, so this step can be accomplished without much difficulty, and with few questions asked.

Loopholes in North American shipping regulations make it possible to file paperwork on goods after they have already left the country; understandably, customs officers are more concerned with goods entering the country than those leaving. Verifying the contents of a shipping container which is in mid-Atlantic or already on Asian soil can be difficult. Tracing a vehicle once it has been sold on the black market is next to impossible. What's more, a North American car apprehended in Asia is shipped back as evidence, at North American tax payers' expense.

Eastern European organized crime groups are also involved in luxury car exportation, shipping vehicles from the East Coast of North America, and even through Hudson Bay.

(source: Pony Express, December 1997, p. 26-31)