Obituary - Hong Chao (Raymond) Huang. Major Chinese gangster
The Highlander
which have now moved into North America in force. The Big Circle Boys
are the predominant gang in Vancouver at present, but other triads are
trying to break their hold and rip off some of their market.
Report: Vancouver Sun
Forty-five year old Hong Chao (Raymond) Huang, a leader of the
notorious Big Circle Boys Triad was gunned down in front of his
mansion Saturday night. He was was a "top, national-priority
organized-crime target" of the RCMP. Huang, was believed to be a major
player in the Canadian drug trade, involved in heroin, synthetic
drugs, importation of precursor chemicals and more, according to
police sources.
Huang's name showed up in connection with almost every major
organized-crime file in the country, but he was always "very
well-insulated" and therefore never charged in Canada, the sources
said. A native of China, he is believed to have been in Canada for the
past 10 years and has criminal ties to Toronto, the United States,
Australia, Hong Kong and China.
He was the subject of RCMP investigations when he was gunned down by a
shooter who was waiting when he arrived home at 3883 Cartier St. about
11 p.m. Saturday, prompting his 10-year-daughter to call 911.
Huang had been living quietly in his huge west-side home with his
wife, little girl and mother for four years without incident.
Vancouver police are investigating the murder and admit that Huang was
on the radar of other police agencies before he became the city's 18th
homicide victim of 2007.
"I can confirm now that the victim was known to other police
agencies," Constable Tim Fanning said Monday.
"I can't give any more information than that, appreciating that it is
not our information to give out, as well as the fact that it is a
homicide investigation right now, so it is not something we can talk
about."
Police are investigating whether the late-night shooting, which rocked
the normally quiet, leafy streets of multi-million dollar mansions,
could be linked to the brazen restaurant slaying last week of
51-year-old Hiep Vinh Do, of Richmond -- another gangster known to
police.
"We are looking into seeing whether this shooting is related to any
other shootings or homicides that have occurred on the Lower Mainland
in the last few months," Fanning said.
"We have a very integrated approach to policing in the Lower
Mainland," he said. "We are always speaking with other agencies with
regard to serious crimes whether it is robberies or homicides.
"We will be talking to other police agencies to see if there is any
relationship with this latest homicide and other shootings or
homicides that have happened."
Fanning also urged anyone in the public with information -- including
those involved in criminal gangs -- to come forward to police or to
call Crimestoppers.
"If anybody is in that lifestyle and has information that they want to
pass on -- because they could be next. It is obviously a very
dangerous, dangerous way to live when you are involved in criminal
activity because the end result is . . . death," Fanning said.
He said investigators have obtained security videos from a number of
houses in the neighbourhood but so far have no suspect description.
The yellow-and-blue home, assessed this year at $5.2 million, is not
officially owned by Huang, but registered to a retired person named
Mei Zhen Wang, who shares the same home address. Wang became the
registered owner of the property in June 2006 after paying just one
dollar, according to land-title documents, suggesting a transfer
between relatives. The previous owner was listed as Gui Yang Yuan, who
bought the house in 2003 -- around the time Huang moved into the
neighbourhood.
While police agencies across Metro Vancouver say the homicide rate is
down this year, there have been several high-profile -- and often very
public -- gangland hits, but none until now involving crime bosses as
big as Huang.
According to police intelligence reports, the Big Circle Boys, or Dai
Huen Jai, had its origins in the Red Guards, the paramilitary troops
of the Chinese Cultural Revolution who terrorized intellectuals and
the upper class.
After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, many Red Guards were sent to
re-education prison camps around the city of Canton -- represented on
maps by a big circle, hence the name of the gang -- where they were
tortured and starved.
Having been through this degradation and with their military training,
the Big Circle Boys have a fearsome reputation. A number escaped and
fled to Hong Kong, where they obtained falsified documents to come to
Canada, first coming to police attention in Vancouver in 1987.
Big Circle Boys are extremely mobile, having an international network
in major cities in Canada and the U.S. They are difficult to detect
because they work in small cells, which are next to impossible to
infiltrate. They are involved in drug trafficking, credit-card fraud,
loan-sharking, human smuggling and trafficking, counterfeit goods and
overseas export of stolen vehicles.
After four fatal shootings in a week, Vancouver police vowed today to
form a new gang violence task force aimed at getting "in the face" of
suspected local gang members.
"We're obviously extremely concerned about this escalation of violence
and potential for innocent victims to be hurt and killed," Vancouver
police Deputy Chief Doug LePard told reporters today at a news
conference.
He said the recent spate of fatal gang violence in Vancouver appears
to be series of unrelated disputes rather than a gang war.
Police investigate a shooting that took place on Granville and
Seventieth around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday that left two people dead.
Police investigate a shooting that took place on Granville and
Seventieth around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday that left two people dead.
Carmine Marinelli/Special to the Sun
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"I would not say it's necessarily truly a gang war," he said. "There
clearly is a conflict between two or more gangs right now....It's not
a classic dispute between one gang trying to take over the territory
of another gang."
The two latest victims, both known gangsters, were gunned down in a
Mercedes about 2:15 a.m. today. The men were identified late this
afternoon as Ronal Shakeel Raj, 31, of Surrey, and Ali Abhari, 25, of
Kelowna.
A 45-year-old man shot to death outside his Shaughnessy mansion
Saturday - Hong Chao (Raymond) Huang - was a top crime boss of the
notorious Big Circle Boys and on the radar of the RCMP nationally.
This week's flurry of gang killings began Halloween night when a
51-year-old Richmond man Hiep Quang Do, was fatally shot at a
Vietnamese restaurant at 4884 Victoria Drive.
Deputy Chief Bob Rich said the Vancouver police department's new gang
violence task force will redeploy patrol officers to try to stop the
outbreak of fatal shootings on city streets. "The public should be
aware there is no greater priority right now than to deal with this
issue," he said, adding the new squad will be "very much an
in-your-face" unit.
"We will be confronting people who are gangsters moving about our
streets and we will be checking on where they live," said Rich, who is
in charge of the operations section, including patrol officers.
"Today we want to send a very clear message to gang members that we
are going to be watching them very closely," he added. "We will be
letting them know that these activities are just not acceptable."
He promised Vancouverites "we are going to take every step to ensure
their safety," he added. Asked how many officers will be assigned to
the new unit, Rich said details still are being worked out.
"I have placed Supt. Andy Hobbs in charge of putting this task force
together," he said.
Rich added that Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu was meeting today with
other senior police leaders in Metro Vancouver to consider a regional
response to the brazen gang violence problem that has erupted lately.
Vancouver police are already part of B.C.'s Integrated Gang Task
Force, which was formed three years ago after another rash of gang
shootings.
The integrated task force was called to the scene of the latest
gangland slaying at 70th and Granville, when two known gangsters were
shot to death in a leased four-door Mercedes.
Police said two late-model sports utility vehicles pulled up and
trapped the southbound Mercedes, which was turning east off Granville
from the left-turn lane.
The passenger in one of the SUVs opened fire, killing both men in the
Mercedes.
LePard said some people tend to romanticize gangster life.
"I was at the scene this morning," he said of the south Granville
slayings. "Those who think the gang lifestyle is appealing, looking at
these two men, full of bullet holes, they didn't look glamorous at
all."
He said gang members are making tens of thousands of dollars a week,
own fancy cars, live in penthouse apartments and spend a lot of money
on drugs and women. "They make a lot of money and spend a lot of
money," LePard said. "They live for today."
That's because they often don't live long, he added.
Supt. John Robin, head of the Integrated Gang Task Force, said Metro
Vancouver is a North American centre for the drug trade and inevitably
faces gangland violence. He said police are on top of the issue, but
valuable resources are sidetracked by the increasing demands of
disclosure once cases go to court.
Legislative changes may be needed to deal with the problem, Robin
said.
Large court cases with multiple defendants are even more difficult to
process.
"The whole court process is sucking up resources," he said. "So many
of our police resources are sucked up with the disclosure process."
RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout, the officer in charge of the Integrated
Homicide Investigation Team, said that in a metropolitan area of 2.6
million, a relatively small number are causing most of the problem.
"There are 300 or 400 people who are creating all of the crime. We
need to get serious about those people. The police are serious...the
community has got to get involved in this and we have got to have a
no-tolerance policy."
LePard said it is now common for gang members to pack guns and use
them when tempers flare over seemingly minor disputes.
"They're very cavalier about their use of violence and the use of
firearms in settling their disputes," he said. "We're very fortunate
that we have not had more innocent victims caught in the cross-fire."
"I can tell you, in general terms, sometimes they are fighting about
insults, they fight about women, they fight about drug turf - they
fight about things that you or I might think are relatively trivial,"
he said when asked to explain what police believe gang members are
fighting over.
LePard suggested gang violence goes in cycles, citing the spike in
gang violence in the mid-1980s when there were open shootouts between
rival gangs - the Los Diablos and Red Eagles - on city streets.
He said today's fatal shooting, using two SUVs to block the car,
showed "a higher level of planning than we normally have seen and
shows a certain level of premeditation."
Meanwhile in the past week, six men in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey
were found shot to death in an apartment. One was a plumber who was
repairing a bathroom and one was a boy who apparently was delivering
pizza. The remaining four were known East Indian drug dealers.
What seems to be happening is a clash between East Indian and Chinese
gangsters trying to take over each other's territory by shooting each
other. The local population wishes them every success in eliminating
each other and as no civilians have been killed yet, the general
opinion is "Go fot it, guys!"
In the meantime, the lady across the road from me who ran 18 brothels
filled wirh sex slaves in Richmond before being nailed and who is now
revealed to be worth millions, has done a Paris Hilton and is planning
to help children and crippled pussycats for her next career. Nice try
but no cigar. I doubt that we'll be seeing her on the street for some
time to come. The new guessng game here is whether the sounds of
gunfire come from someone's TV or from the street.
Just another ho-hum week in Vancouver...