Wah Kee (华记) is a

secret society A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...

based in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

since the nineteenth century. According to the History of Wah Kee, Wah Kee (华记) was created in Singapore by Su Guanghua (苏广华). His associate Zhao Guangheng (赵广恒) created Guang Kee (广记) in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

, China, while Guan Fusheng (关福胜) created Sheng Kee (胜记) in Thailand, and Zhang Xiongjie (张雄杰) created Jie Kee (杰记) in Vietnam. In the 1950s, they operated openly in the area around Bentong and placed a member on the local council of Jemaluang.Harper, T.N. ''The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya'', Cambridge University Press, 2001. . During this time, they were commonly associated with the Malaysian Chinese Association, with politician D. R. Seenivasagam going so far as to describe this connection in Parliament. In recent times, they are mainly in the Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, Penang, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Sarawak, Perak and other areas. In Singapore, Wah Kee is mainly in the China Town area. The triad also have some branches in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. The Philippine Center on Transnational Crime has stated that while the Wah Kee do not operate as a traditional Triad (underground societies), triad per se, they are heavily involved in heroin trafficking in the region.{{cite web, url=http://www.pctc.gov.ph/updates/tcthreat.htm, title=TRANSNATIONAL CRIME: A THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY, publisher=The Philippine Center on Transnational Crime, Department of Foreign Affairs, date=July 8, 2000, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100801060454/http://www.pctc.gov.ph:80/updates/tcthreat.htm, archive-date=1 August 2010

References

Secret societies in Singapore Organized crime groups in Malaysia Organised crime groups in Singapore Triad groups

See also

References