Sun Yee On ( zh, t=新義安), or the New Righteousness and Peace Commercial and Industrial Guild, is one of the leading triads in Hong Kong and China. It has more than 25,000 members worldwide. It is also believed to be active in the UK, the United States, France and Belgium.

History

Sun Yee On was founded by Heung Chin, originally from Teochew (Chaozhou), in 1919. ''Yee On'' () is a historical name for Chaozhou. The organization has been involved in counterfeiting,

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

, narcotics, human trafficking, prostitution, smuggling and

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

. Mainly through ethnic Chinese diaspora, it is thought to extend to the United States, Canada, Thailand, Australia, South Africa and Central America. The founder was deported to Taiwan in the early 1950s and continued to lead the organization from there. Sun Yee On was allegedly taken over by his eldest son Heung Wah-yim, who ostensibly worked as a law clerk. The triad is also noted as being founded by "Teochew and Hokkien immigrants" to Hong Kong. Sun Yee On Triad (2018 - updated)

1980s spill

In February 1986, a former Hong Kong police officer, Anthony Chung, who had become a member of Sun Yee On, asked the police for protection. He identified Heung Wah-yim as the leader of the triad, and this led to the police arresting eleven members of the Triad on 1 April 1987. Whilst searching Heung Wah-yim's law office, they found a list of 900 numbered names, which appeared to be a membership list of Sun Yee On. In October, Heung Wah-yim was brought to trial, along with five accomplices who all pleaded guilty. Heung Wah-yim professed his innocence throughout the trial, claiming to be the president of a local chapter of the

Lions Club The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, by Melvin Jones. It is now headquartere ...

and that the list found in his office consisted of potential donors. Chung and another former member were the main prosecution witnesses. On 20 January 1988, the jury found five of the defendants guilty, including Heung Wah-yim who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, acquitting the sixth.

2000s

The triad operates several vice establishments in

Tsim Sha Tsui Tsim Sha Tsui, often abbreviated as TST, is an urban area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hung Hom Bay now east of Tsi ...

and

Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, ...

, or at least did in November 2010 when a 29-year-old alleged office-bearer or "red pole" of the triad, named "Sai B" Chan, was arrested for vice offences and money laundering. Lee Tai-lung Lee, a Sun Yee On boss in Tsim Sha Tsui, was murdered in front of the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel on 4 August 2009 by members of the Wo Shing Wo gang. It was supposedly a revenge attack ordered by Leung Kwok-chung, a senior member of a Wo Shing Wo crew in

Tai Kok Tsui Tai Kok Tsui is an area west of Mong Kok in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The mixed land use of industrial and residential is present in the old area. The Cosmopolitan Dock and oil depots were previously located there. Blocks of high-rise residential b ...

who was injured by Lee during a bar fight in July 2006 in Prat Avenue. Following Lee's death, three of his former followers stepped in to defend his lucrative entertainment empire from other triads. In 2011(?), Lee's three followers were tracked by "Ko Tat", another "red pole" in

Wan Chai Wan Chai is situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area n ...

, who failed to spread his influence across the harbour. Tai Hau, leader of another Sun Yee On faction active in

Tuen Mun Tuen Mun or Castle Peak is an area near the mouth of Tuen Mun River and Castle Peak Bay in the New Territories, Hong Kong. It was one of the earliest settlements in what is now Hong Kong and can be dated to the Neolithic period. In the more re ...

, tried to encroach upon Lee's West Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui operations. His attempts were thwarted by an undercover police operation, as a result of which 222 people were arrested in January 2012. The Organised Crime and Triad Bureau suspects that "Ko Chun" may be the latest kingpin of Lee's original turf.Lo, Clifford; Cheung, Simpson (19 January 2012). "Forget blood, it's all about the money", ''South China Morning Post'' On 22 March 2012, police arrested 102 members of Sun Yee On in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

, China.100 members of Hong Kong triad arrested in Shenzhen
, ''wantchinatimes''

In popular culture

* In the

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

adaptation of ''

Black Lagoon ''Black Lagoon'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rei Hiroe. It has been published in Shogakukan's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Monthly Sunday Gene-X'' since April 2002, with its chapters colle ...

'', the

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

branch of Sun Yee On (also known within the anime as Hong Kong Triad, because of the group's

place of origin In Switzerland, the place of origin (german: Heimatort or Bürgerort, literally "home place" or "citizen place"; french: Lieu d'origine; it, Luogo d'origine) denotes where a Swiss citizen has their municipal citizenship, usually inherited from prev ...

) is based on the fictional city of Roanapur, Thailand and is led by Mr. Chang (a former HKPD cop). In ''Black Lagoon'', the Sun Yee On is considered one of the strongest criminal organizations. * The 2012 video game '' Sleeping Dogs'', set in Hong Kong, focuses on the Chinese triads from the perspective of an undercover detective. In ''Sleeping Dogs'', the player plays as Wei Shen, an undercover police officer transferred to the HKPD from San Francisco, on a mission to infiltrate the organised crime lords of the notorious "Sun On Yee".

References

External links