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HONG KONG — The name alone is YOR to frighten small children, Grown-ups too. “As soon as he mentioned his ‘elder brother’ I thought: ‘Oh nol he's a triad!’ ” the tiny young Chinese woman, speaking in English, told the packed courtroom, while the defendents accused of murder stared stonily, meaningfully in her direction, “I was very seared,” she said in a quavering voice. The woman was testifying recently at a highly publicized trial of a group of triad members accused of murdering a man who apparently spilled food on one of them during a dinner in a local restaurant. It's little wonder the witness was frightened. The simple five-letter word “triad” conjures up an alphabet soup of powerful images in Hong Kong. Blood-drinking initiation ceremonies. Fearsome oaths of loyalty to the death. Robed incense-masters. Ritual headbands to be worn while kneeling before the 4'tar. Leaders known only by numbers like 426s, 438s, 489s. Exotic names like 14K, Sun Yee On, Kung Lok. IMAGE FEARFUL Tentacles of these apparently gigantic secret crime organizations are supposed to reach into all aspects of life in this teeming British colony of six million on the south coast of China. And they're supposed to stretch to North America as Hong Kong Chinese emigrate in ever- ‘increasing numbers But even in the Sun Yee On, the top men have long since given up the idea that they can rake in part of the profits made by their supposed underlings, says Merritt. GOON OWN Merritt says the turning point came long ago when triad’ members began to realize they could make more money on their own in narcotics, gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking and monopolies of goods, services and labor. Most of thein still pay lip-service td their societies but little more, says the Hong Kong chief inspector. Canadian experts agree. “There is no strong triad based in or around Vancouver,” says Det. Martin Turner of Vancouver's Asian crime squad, a unit made up of both RCMP and city police. Offshoots of four major gangs are present, Turner says, but they're not directed, not centrally controlled triads. FEW IN CRIME Sgt. George Cowley of Toronto's Asian’ organized crime squad says fewer than 10 per cent of that city’s estimated hundreds of triad members are actually active criminals. Cowley said the squad, which includes officers from the RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police, last found before the colony comes under the ignty of Communist China in 1997. But beyond this B-movie image of the triads is a vastly different story. Police experts in Hong Kong and in Canada agree Asian crime gangs are a serious problem that will likely get worse. But the image of triads as \Mafia-like groups controlled by all-powerful godfathers is\more fancy that fact, say the experts. “They create a lot of their own myths,” says Det. Chief Insp. Brian Merritt of the Royal Hong Kong Police. LACK UNITY The triads, ancient Chinese patriotic societies that turned to crime decades ago, have long been dis- integrating, Merritt says. “There is not one aa triad society you can call an organized crime syndicate . . . (in terms of being) a huge, monolithic, well-organized crime syndicate,” says the bear-like veteran officer. “They're made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands of péople, all doing their own thing. Some into organized crime. Some into street gangs, youth gangs. Some not doing anything at all. But there's no command structure.” Merritt says four different kinds of triad societies of initiati er ies, central funds and organizers from abroad in 1983. None of the experts underestimates the seriousness of the present level of Asian crime in Canada or the threat of more to come in the near future. Cowley says Asian gangs are heavily into gambling and extortion in Toronto, as well as trying to secure monopolies in some sectors of the entertainment in- dustry. He's also concerned about the laundering of foreign crime profits but notes that activity is difficult to prove in Canada because there are no controls on currency movement to help trace the source of suspect money. The sergeant adds that Vietnamese gangs are as much of a problem in Toronto as Chinese ones. FROM HONG KONG Const. Bob Cooper, another Asian gang expert in Vancouver, says criminal leaders from Hong Kong have begun infiltrating his city’s rapidly growing Chinese community. Local criminals and 200 core members of four Chinese street| gangs form loose drug rs gling rings to help supply British Columbia's estimated 10,000 heroin addicts, says Cooper. He predicts more gang violance, gambling, laund- ering of Hong Kong crime profits throogh legitimate residential and commercial real-estate purhcases, and the peterieewe §=THEN STEER STRAIGHT vodka-based wine cooler it could probably solve its bal ance of payments problems with sales to British Colum- bians. The latest B.C. 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