SCMP, April 9, 2001: A Hong Kong-based triad group in Sydney is alleged to have recruited non-Asian students in elite schools to launder money and carry drugs.
Boys of all races were used to extort money and bully other schoolmates, according to a report in Sydney newspaper the Sun-Herald yesterday.
Students from elite schools in Sydney were quoted as saying that their schoolmates had to pay A$2,000 (HK$7,700) to get themselves out of the triad group, identified as Sing Wa, when they found they were getting involved in serious crime.
However, police in Hong Kong said they had never heard of a triad group by that name.
The gang was said to be preying on private schools in Sydney's northern suburbs, which contain some of the country's wealthiest areas, with members in school uniform committing crimes after school.
'The boys said they joined the gangs because they thought it would give them protection on the railway [when they travelled to school] and a bit of respect from their schoolmates who would otherwise bully them,' the report said.