Yip Kai-foon and Cheung Tze-kung were once rich, powerful and the most feared men in Hong Kong. Now one is sitting helplessly in jail while the other was executed in Guangdong province less than two years ago.
Hong Kong gangsters were once untouchable but due to improved co-operation between police officials in Hong Kong and the mainland, their reign of terror was put to an end.
Yip is now a shadow of his former self. He was shot by the police in 1996 which paralysed him and this capture led to Yip being sentenced to 40 years in Stanley Prison, the longest ever given in Hong Kong. He moves around in a wheelchair and gets no sympathy from prison guards.
Before the handover, Yip and his accomplices would enter Hong Kong and rob jewellery stores or kidnap the rich and famous and demand large ransoms. They then crossed the border into China and were always able to get away because they knew the Hong Kong police did not co-ordinate their efforts with the mainland police.
Things changed though when Yip's gang kidnapped Walter Kwok Ping of Sun Hung Kai Properties and reportedly kidnapped Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, son of Li Ka-shing. The Government in Beijing felt that it gave Hong Kong a bad image. It ordered a crackdown on crime in Guangdong.
'In the past, when gangsters like these got across the border, they were home and away. It's not that way any more,' says a former Hong Kong police officer.
Regular meetings are now held by officers from Hong Kong and Guangdong where they share intelligence and hold training exercises.