Was 'White Powder Ma' a secret agent?

WHEN Ma Sik-yu boarded a flight from Hongkong in February 1977 to escape a police dragnet, he became an underworld legend. A high-profile multi-millionaire leading a luxurious lifestyle, he was almost above the law at a time when the Royal Hongkong Police Force was riddled with corruption and a severe lack of confidence. But despite a fortune based on years of heroin trafficking, gambling and espionage, Ma, believed to have been more powerful than convicted drug lord Ng Sik-ho, also known as ''Limpy'' Ho, eventually felt he was no longer safe in Hongkong. Detectives knew of his departure plans but believed he was taking his son to school in Australia and that he would return. But Ma never again set foot in the territory. For more than 15 years the Narcotics Bureau tried to bring the man who was perhaps Hongkong's greatest heroin baron to justice. That battle ended on November 16 last year, when he died of heart and kidney failure in Taiwan. But Ma left behind a mystery: was he an agent for the United States and Taiwan, passing on intelligence about China? According to a number of reports, former US president Mr Ronald Reagan sent a letter of condolence to Ma and his younger brother, Ma Sik-chun, on the death of their mother early last year. The same sources said outgoing US President and former ambassador to Beijing Mr George Bush also sent a letter of condolence, as did representatives of the British and Australian governments. Mr Bush was also head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the late 1970s. The brothers' contacts in the Golden Triangle, an area covering parts of Thailand, Burma and Laos, would almost certainly have had access to intelligence about the military and political situation in Indochina and southern China at the height of the Vietnam War and the Cultural Revolution. Over the last 15 years, Ma and his brother became cult figures among Hongkong's criminal fraternity and also with the man in the street as they continued to lead lives of luxury, out of reach of the territory's judicial system. Both men still have Interpol ''red notices'' pending, which would have resulted in their extradition to Hongkong if they had travelled to a jurisdiction where the warrants could be enforced. But Taiwan has no extradition treaty with the territory and has become a safe haven for Hongkong criminals. Charges are also still pending against the two Mas, who never stood trial in Hongkong for alleged drug conspiracy offences. Ma Sik-yu, a contemporary of Limpy Ho, was believed to have been the largest importer of morphine and opium from the Golden Triangle to Hongkong in the late 1960s and early 1970s and to have amassed a multi-million-dollar empire in the process. ''They ran the whole show, they controlled everything,'' said one detective of the Mas. ''If anybody wanted any heroin they went to them.'' The head of the Narcotics Bureau, Chief Superintendent Keith Braithwaite, who as a chief inspector was involved in the original investigation into Ma Sik-yu, said the Ma syndicate even used Polish ships to bring the drugs into Hongkong from Thailand, where the drug baron was known to traffickers as ''Bear Siku''. Ma's group was considered by underworld figures to be more powerful than Limpy Ho's,which was estimated at 1,000-strong. Born on April 20, 1933, in Chiu Chow in China, Ma made his first million from illegal tse fa lotteries in the 1960s when he took over the popular racket in Kowloon from the former ''king of tse fa '', Wong Lo-kut. This brought him an estimated $6,000 a day or $2 million a year, and gave him the financial clout he needed to enter the growing drug trade out of the Golden Triangle. Ma and his brother had arrived penniless in Hongkong in the late 1940s. They started as street hawkers in the lanes of the Kowloon waterfront district and took low-paid jobs as waiters in restaurants and mahjong schools, which led to illegal gambling establishments. According to Alfred McCoy's book, The Politics of Heroin, the two then moved into low-level drug pushing and operating opium dens. Having made use of their Chiu Chow connections the brothers emerged in the 1960s as leaders of one of Hongkong's major gambling and narcotics syndicates. Operating from his apartment in Oriental Gardens on Prince Edward Road, Ma Sik-yu managed an investment portfolio that included property worth $2 million. The more flamboyant Sik-chun, also known as Ma Yik-shing, acquired restaurants and real estate, and moved into the media field with the Oriental Daily News before setting up Ma's Film Company in the 1970s. The newspaper is now run by Ma Sik-chun's son, Mr Ma Ching-kwan, who has never been accused of any wrongdoing. The elder Ma had connections with drug traffickers in Thailand, most of whom spoke the Chiu Chow dialect and who were looking for people to ship opium, milked from poppies, out of the region. In the 1960s and early 1970s opium was still widely used in numerous dens throughout the territory, and the brothers shipped it to Hongkong in Thai fishing trawlers. At the same time, Chinese chemists refined heroin in Hongkong laboratories using blocks of morphine smuggled in sacks of opium. That process has since moved back to the Golden Triangle after the police shut down all the laboratories here. But 20 years ago it formed the backbone of Ma's drug empire. Known as ''White Powder Ma'' for his dominance of the heroin trade, he left for Taipei in February 1977 shortly before a warrant was issued for his arrest. Superintendent Braithwaite said the police knew he was planning to fly out of Hongkong, but thought he would return. ''We knew he was planning to go, but the operation at that time was not really ready to go. ''At that time there were concerns about hitting someone of that stature. ''We didn't think there was any danger of him not coming back and we weren't ready to move. If he had been tipped off he would have known that.'' He said he regretted not arresting Ma at the time. ''What we should have done with hindsight was to go in, arrest him and charge him, but we did not have evidence of sufficient strength.'' He said Ma, 59 when he died, took his son to Australia and then went to several southeast Asian countries before flying to Taiwan. Superintendent Braithwaite said he believed Ma was weighing up the situation and spoke with his underworld contacts to gauge the risks involved in returning to Hongkong. Police believe he was tipped off before the warrant for his arrest was issued. As he was not officially wanted he was not on the ''stop list'' at Kai Tak and was allowed to board the flight. A number of narcotics officers believe he ''retired'' from the drug trade some years ago, but Superintendent Braithwaite suspected he kept his underworld links and could have used them over the last 15 years as Taiwan became an increasing important hub ininternational trafficking. ''At the time we made requests to Taiwan and there was no response,'' he said of attempts to have Ma returned to Hongkong. The lack of response is believed to be connected with the Ma brothers' support for the Nationalist cause. In The Politics of Heroin, McCoy cites an article in the now defunct Hongkong Star newspaper based on US Drug Enforcement Administration sources which claimed Ma Sik-yu ''was deeply involved with a network that spied on China for Taiwan''. The article claimed the ''spy network'' was active in both Hongkong and the Golden Triangle and the information was dispatched to Taipei. McCoy writes: ''Most important to their ability to avoid prolonged imprisonment was the Ma brothers' alleged involvement with the Taiwan intelligence operations against the People's Republic of China.'' Superintendent Braithwaite, who did not meet Ma although he was interviewed on a number of occasions by the police, said Ma was not a violent man and tried to distance himself from the drug trade once he became established. ''He got to the stage where he was sufficiently wealthy to sit back and let someone else do the dirty work.'' Nine people, including Ma Sik-chun, were arrested and charged in August and September 1977. Ma Sik-yu, who was by then living in Taiwan, was named as a co-conspirator in charges of being involved in a conspiracy to traffic in dangerous drugs worth millions of dollars between 1967 and 1973. All nine were committed for trial in the High Court, but one week before the trial was due to start, in September 1978, five of the accused, including Ma Sik-chun, fled Hongkong. The four who remained in Hongkong were tried and eventually acquitted. Limpy Ho appeared as a crown witness in the trial of those accused with Ma Sik-chun. Limpy Ho got his nickname from a leg injury sustained in a street fight. He died on September 8, 1991, three weeks after being released from jail on medical grounds. Ng also fled to Taiwan in the 1974, but returned to Hongkong as he believed the police did not have enough evidence to convict him. After a highly publicised trial in 1975 he was jailed for 30 years on drug-smuggling charges. During the hearing it was revealed that in the seven years before his conviction Ng's syndicate had imported 27 tonnes of unprocessed opium from the Golden Triangle worth more than $30 million. In 1977, Narcotics Bureau officers believed the Ma brothers' syndicate was responsible for importing at least 10 tonnes of opium and morphine valued at $10 million. In those days the racket grossed an average of $30,000 a day or nearly $1 million a month, and is believed to have sold up to $500-million worth of drugs to local users during its reign. But it was not all plain sailing for drug baron Ma, who lived under the name Ma Tik-yin in Taiwan. He was arrested by the Taiwanese Investigation Bureau in August 1977, days after his brother was arrested in Hongkong, and detained for 100 days. Convicted drug traffickers face the death penalty in Taiwan. After his release Ma Sik-yu was reported to have bought an expensive house in an exclusive suburb of Taipei. He was seen eating dim sum in a Cantonese restaurant in the city and became friendly with a number of former Hongkong police officers on the run in Taiwan, including the notorious Lui Lok. The Ma brothers and their nephew, Ma Woon-yin, are believed to have lived in Taiwan for the last 15 years after fleeing Hongkong and have never stood trial in the territory. But Superintendent Braithwaite said he had heard rumours that Ma Sik-yu had wanted to return to Hongkong before his death.