A case of too little too late?

THE last time Andely Chan Yiu-hing summoned such a show of force was more than two years ago. During a brief gang war on his home patch of Wan Chai, he called upon more than 100 straw-sucking triads to battle his rivals. Chan was known as a renegade and ruthless Sun Yee On regional commander, and one telephone call was enough to flood the streets with gangsters - ferried in for the Lockhart Road showdown from around the territory. The matter at issue was the right to ''protect'' a new seafood restaurant. As a temporary badge of allegiance on the night of April 15, 1991, Chan's allies chewed on plastic drinking straws, while their rivals wore hats. The Sun Yee On triads confronted their Wo Hop To counterparts - and the police - as they overran the Wan Chai red light area. The outcome was another bloody victory for Chan and another step towards the notoriety and black fortune he sought as one of the most violent gangsters on Hong Kong's streets. Many of the same street fighters were out in force again last Thursday, this time wearing designer dark glasses. But Chan was unable to appreciate the gesture. The occasion was the return of his body from Macau, where last Sunday the 32-year-old gangsterbecame a victim of the triad wars he helped provoke. The hail of bullets which killed Chan and his motor racing mechanic, Tse Chun-fung, 29, outside the New World Emperor Hotel, also provoked a flurry of activity across the Pearl River Estuary. On Tuesday, Hong Kong's anti-triad police established a ''special investigation team'' to probe the gangland ''hit'', while on Friday, Legislative Councillors backed the introduction of sweeping new police powers to battle organised crime. But is it too little too late to curb Hong Kong's thriving underworld? Could the problem have been controlled 20 years ago when a dedicated territory-wide unit, the Triad Society Bureau (TSB), had formed a unified police frontline in the battle against the secret societies? A secret police report, meant to form the force's and Government policy on triads, stated in 1976 that secret societies ''exist largely in name only''. Compiled by a former unit head, Senior Superintendent Teddy U Tat-ming, it sent a ''confused'' messageto senior officers, including the then commissioner, Roy Henry, about the scale of triad activities - and led them to downplay the problem for a decade. The report, along with acknowledged triad infiltration of the unit, was a major factor in having the TSB closed in 1976. It also effectively ended Hong Kong's co-ordinated fight against the triads, with investigations now taken on by regional units. It was not until 1985 that the police officially admitted they might have got it wrong. The then commissioner, Raymon Anning, said the report might have influenced investigations into triad activities. ''It is possible that triads have penetrated the police department but we will take immediate action if there are any indications of such a penetration,'' Mr Anning said then. The following year the Government said the police had adopted the wrong strategy and that the dossier gave a ''confused picture in describing the degree of organisation that existed in some societies''. In 1976, Mr U said triads were loosely-knit criminal gangs which did not have a large following, although they were responsible for most organised crime. A year later he stated 75 per cent of the gangsters involved in prostitution and pornography had been put out of business because of intensified police action. Mr U also said societies were not large organisations and that there had been a 40 per cent drop in prosecutions for membership. According to documented police figures, the Sun Yee On had 7,000 members in 1953. This jumped to 35,000 by 1987, 47,311 by October 1991, and is now believed to be about 60,000, although not all are active. In 1986, legislator Martin Lee Chu-ming said the dossier showed incompetence on the part of the policemen who compiled it and that officers acting under triad influence might have produced a misleading report. Of course, there were officers and sections fighting the street-level crime but the impetus against gang leaders was lost and they were allowed to consolidate their power base and start a long-term drive towards legitimising themselves and their money. It is generally accepted many are now so entrenched in society it will be hard, if not impossible, to dislodge them. The report stated secret societies had degenerated from strictly-controlled, politically-motivated organisations into loose gangs of criminals. In reality, the triads are more co-ordinated and efficient than in the pre-war days, with the Sun Yee On, 14K and Wo groups now controlling thousands of supporters and reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. They were allowed to evolve into sophisticated organised crime groups operating internationally with legitimate fronts, in particular the film and entertainment industries. Their tentacles have spread into southern China after an absence of many years asthe communist country opens its doors to ''Western'' thinking. In a belated attempt to stem the creep of the secret societies, Guangdong authorities introduced China's first ''anti-triad laws'' earlier this month. In Hong Kong, the battle against the territory's gangsters is waged by the Organised Crime and Triad Group, renamed from the Organised and Serious Crime Group after an increase in underworld activity in the late '80s and early '90s. But the former head of the force's Criminal Intelligence Bureau, Steve Vickers, said Chan's high-profile murder again exposed the Government's lack of resolve in stamping out triads. ''There is no will in this Government to take on the triads. Time and again they respond to individual incidents rather than attacking the overall problem. It is the tip of an iceberg and no one in this Government wants to take them on,'' said Mr Vickers, regional director of operations for corporate investigators, Kroll Associates. Mr Vickers, who said the Sun Yee On was active in all levels of public life, suggested the establishment of small dedicated task forces, made up of thoroughly vetted officers, to stop the secret societies. ''A lot of people still think that triads aren't bad, and are only bad if they do something wrong,'' he said. ''The police should be more pro-active with small elite groups given specific targets to destabilise, infiltrate and attack the sources of income to destroy the mystique which draws young people to join them.'' Legislative Councillor Simon Ip Sik-on, who is on the security panel, hopes the Organised and Serious Crimes bill will give police the ''extraordinary'' powers they need to fight the triads. The legislation, being scrutinised by the Legislative Council's Bills Committee, will require people to give evidence or information relating to serious crime; it also redefines the meaning of ''organised crime'' to allow the law to specifically target triads. ''The Government has been telling us the police need the extraordinary powers to tackle the problem. They say the normal police powers are not enough to tackle the problem. So we are giving them the additional powers,'' he said. Many will welcome those powers to curb the increasing audacity, sophistication and power of the triads. This was on public show last Thursday when, in a remarkable act of solidarity for the slain hoodlum, about 100 gangsters massed in the autumn rain as a makeshift coffin containing Chan's body was unceremoniously dumped on a greasy Kowloon Bay pier. Dressed in dark clothes and dark glasses, the young men loitered menacingly around the dock as their Dai Lo 's final trip came to an undignified end.