When the Wall Street Journal broke the Yuan Yuen
“Norman” Hsu story, some likened Norman to “Johnny” Chung and
“Charlie” Trie, and wondered if the Peoples Republic of China (PRC)
was passing money again to the Clintons. Now, with the Los
Angeles Times’ story about Clinton’s fundraising in New York
City’s Chinatown, there’s another question to consider: Is the
Clinton campaign a target of Asian criminal groups looking for
political influence?
On August 28, 1990, Hsu claimed he was kidnapped by Raymond
“Shrimpboy” Chow. Who is Chow? In December 1992, the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental
Affairs, U.S. Senate, released a 59-page report entitled “The New
International Criminal And Asian Organized Crime.” (This document
is not posted online, but is available through some libraries and
from the Senate committee, 199 Russell Building, Washington, D.C.,
202-224-3721.) On page 26, the document displays an organizational
chart of the San Francisco branch of the international Chinese
triad, Wo Hop To. Chow’s name and mug shot identified him as the
triad’s enforcer.
At the time of the alleged kidnapping, the Foster City,
California police reported that Chow and Hsu were arguing over
money amounts ranging from $300K to $1 million. Did the triad
bankroll the scam that led to Hsu’s conviction about a year later,
or was Hsu crazy enough to try to scam a triad? By now, the
relationship between Hsu and Wo Hop To is probably clear to the
FBI. The rest of us will have to wait until the federal suits line
up behind a bank of microphones to announce their findings on the
Hsu case.
Meanwhile, Chow was convicted of racketeering, underage
prostitution and international heroin trade. He was released early
in 2003 in exchange for testifying against his crime boss, Peter
Chong, the triad’s Grand Dragon.
Today, Chow works to project a public image of a reformed
criminal. When she was a San Francisco Supervisor, recently elected
California Assemblywoman and now Majority Whip, Fiona Ma, sponsored
Chow for a “Certificate of Honor” award from the city. (A photo of
Chow holding his certificate can be seen here.) Among those who contributed to Ms. Ma’s recent election were
Norman Hsu, Winkle Paw, Danny Lee and Yu-Fen Huang — the last two
were among a group of three from Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, who
contributed $270,000 to Democrats.
On October 19, 2007, the L.A. Times broke the NYC
Chinatown donations story. The reporters noted that Clinton’s
success in raising money from “dishwashers, waiters and street
stall hawkers” is due, in part, to a strategy of forming “mutually
beneficial alliances with powerful groups.” Really, what sort of
groups?
The L.A. Times stated that “Clinton has enlisted the
aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those
representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The
organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown
criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human
trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants.” What sort
of influence, and to what end?
The unnamed organization has to be the Fukien American
Association. On page 22 of the Senate report, a display labeled
“Leadership Structure of Primary Tongs and Affiliated Gangs in New
York City” draws a line between the Fukien American Association and
the street gang Fuk Ching. A map of street gang territories in a
book entitled Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and
Ethnicity, by Ko-lin Chin (Oxford University Press, 1996)
locates Fuk Ching’s territory on East Broadway, near the Manhattan
Bridge — right where the L.A. Times found bogus addresses
for some missing Clinton donors.
How far-fetched is the notion that Chinese criminal
organizations would front for the PRC? Back on June 24, 1997, a
select team of investigators from Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and Canadian Security & Intelligence Service drafted a
report entitled “Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial
Links in Canada.” The secret report, code-named “Sidewinder,”
concluded that three groups of recent immigrants from China were
working together to “gain influence on Canadian politics by
maximizing their presence over some of the country’s economic
levers.” The three groups represented the (1) Chinese Intelligence
Services (ChIS), (2) former Hong Kong tycoons with known
connections to ChIS and PRC officials, and (3) “Chinese organized
crime elements.” (The Sidewinder document is available here and here. This writer also telephonically
interviewed two persons with intimate, first-hand knowledge of
Sidewinder.)
The government of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien deemed
the report to be politically incorrect — scaremongering was the
charge. Sidewinder was exchanged for a much softer version labeled
“Echo.” All materials related to Sidewinder were destroyed,
including the private notes of the investigators. But a draft of
Sidewinder surfaced in 1999. It states that “The triads, the
tycoons and the ChIS have learned the quick way to gain influence
is to provide finance to the main political parties.” Is that
what’s happening with the Clinton campaign?
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a
duck…maybe it is more Peking duck.
