Abstract
The Big Circle was used in before the 1970s as a neutral ancient slang for Guangzhou city. In the 1970s, the name became infamous due to armed robberies by individuals who illegally entered Hong Kong from Guangzhou when the Cultural Revolution ended. Not all Big Circle Boys (BCB) were former Red Guards or People’s Liberation Army contrary to popular misconception. They banded together in Hong Kong due to discrimination and to resist the Triads. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they started to smuggle themselves to the rest of the world. Two generations of BCB can be artificially delineated according to their time of migration. The 1997 reversion of Hong Kong was one for the reasons for migration. They were able to exploit Canada’s lax immigration system and entered in large numbers by claiming bogus political asylum. These were known as the second-generation BCB.
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Notes
- 1.
Until this study, the most detailed historical accounts are those found in The Triads as Business (Chu 2000: 150–152).
- 2.
For the purpose of Volumes I and II, the abbreviation BCB is used for both singular and plural expressions.
- 3.
The only exception to this is the testimonial evidence given by Johnny Kon Yu Leung at the US Subcommittee Senate Hearing on Asian Organized Crime (1992). Johnny Kon was the leader of ten of the most powerful BCB factions from Hong Kong in the 1970s that subsequently migrated to the US in the 1980s. However, his testimony did not reveal much detail regarding the BCB’s history. For more on this case, see Chung (2008).
- 4.
The notion of the first and second generations is more of a creation by Western authorities rather than actual terms used by the BCB themselves. Nevertheless, R2 (2008) also used the terms mainly to distinguish between those who have committed armed robberies in Hong Kong during the 1970s and those who arrived in Canada directly from Guangzhou or via Hong Kong since the late 1980s. Since migration of the BCB is a continual phenomenon, the designation of ‘generations’ is not accurate in the absolute sense, but only used to separate cohorts for ease of reference.
- 5.
For a general understanding of the GPCR, Red Guards, and the Gang of Four, see Red-Color News Soldier by Li (2003). It contains photographic and first-hand accounts of the GPCR as told by a former Red Guard himself.
- 6.
R7 (2008) noted that during his time in the service, the officers were told by the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) that the first-generation BCB were PLA deserters who went to Hong Kong in the mid-1970s.
- 7.
Taking after the literature on this subject, these individuals are referred to as ‘rusticants’ hereafter.
- 8.
Other than the military arbitrarily choosing students to be sent-down for re-education, government programmes were also created in an effort to instil some kind of logic into the selection process. For more, see Unger (1982: 165–168).
- 9.
In most years of the re-education programme, the rusticants were offered at least two choices—a commune or a state farm. See Unger (1982: 164) for a description of the two choices.
- 10.
See Appendix C for Kwok Yung’s (to be shown as a prominent BCB in Canada) court testimony on his experience in China, which corresponds with R2’s (2008) description of the occurrences during the GPCR.
- 11.
For candid and intimate accounts of the political de-socialisation process followed by disillusionment, impulsivity, and rationalisation of their escape to Hong Kong (and later elsewhere), see details of interviews with four former Red Guards in Children of Mao (Chan 1985: 189–203).
- 12.
The number of people from China entering Hong Kong illegally each year between 1970 and 1974 was estimated by the Hong Kong government to have risen from 7000 in 1970 to 30,000 in 1974 (Director of Immigration, Hong Kong Annual Department Report, 1969–1975, cited in Chan 1985).
- 13.
There are six different subgroups of the modern Cantonese (or Yue) language, with Guangzhou dialect (including Panyu District) and Taishan dialect being two of them. Even within the Guangzhou dialect, accents can be distinguished between regions. For example, spoken Cantonese in Guangzhou and Hong Kong can be differentiated. For more information on the phonology of Guangzhou Cantonese, see Gui (2005: 1–26).
- 14.
Other versions include the following: the cigarette brand which they used to smoke in Hong Kong—Lucky Strike—had the depiction of a circle on the cover (R14 2008); their well-developed connections in the criminal world is akin to a ‘big circle’ of networks in the higher echelons of the underworld (ibid.).
- 15.
As mentioned previously, R7 (2008) holds the belief that ‘Some of the original BCB were PLA deserters, hence the ability to organise, act in a disciplined fashion, inflict great violence on the victims, and carry out these very daring, precision-styled robberies in Hong Kong as a starter.’ This may have involved youths or Red Guards who had been recruited into the PLA after re-education, as previously discussed.
- 16.
A report on the BCB prepared by Toronto Police Service Intelligence analyst A. P. Lee (1990: 3–5), who had also been a former member of the Royal Hong Kong Police (RHKP), describes two documented cases where extensive planning was involved:
-
1.
‘There is one documented case where a gang spent four months in planning for a cash-in-transit robbery. They rented a safe house for meetings, a flat for observations and bought CB radios for communications when shadowing the vehicles used by a trading firm to move foreign currencies collected from air couriers. After four months, they abandoned the plan when they noticed a traffic monitoring video camera had turned from its original position [The camera was mounted on a post some 300 metres away and 10 metres above their observation flat. It was turned to obtain a view of their flat and the turn was executed over a two-week period and the time it was directly pointed at their flat was less than ten minutes!]. Six months later, they robbed a watch company of over US$1M worth of watches. When they were captured two months later, they were in the process of executing a kidnap caper with a potential gain of US$2M.’
-
2.
‘It reached a zenith when a composite gang of seven robbed a cash-in-transit vehicle of US$1.2M in 1975 – a record amount at the time – where three vehicles and several hand guns were used to execute a military style intercept. Two other vehicles were stashed a quarter of a mile away and used as getaways. The unusually large group which took part in the robbery was the result of two different gangs both having planned the robbery separately and ran into each other during one of their “dry runs”. They then were forced to compromise and joined forces to carry out the job. Their plan was based entirely upon their observations of a certain banks movement and if they had inside information, they would have waited for one day longer and could then get away with some US$2M!’
-
1.
- 17.
Note here that both R2 and Chu (2008) have recognised the Hunan Gang as a separate criminal entity to the BCB. Even Johnny Kon, the only known leader of various BCB groups (but not a BCB himself), testified that his underlings included people from Hunan province to whom he referred as BCB.
- 18.
As the current study mainly aims to examine the second-generation BCB in Canada, the Flaming Eagles case study is excluded. For details on this first-generation BCB group, see Chung (2008).
- 19.
R2 (2008) noted that although the Flaming Eagles ‘had the best management system as a BCB group,’ it was an exception to the disorganisation normally found between BCB groups. Part of how R2’s knowledge about the Flaming Eagles was validated was when he initiated a discussion regarding one of the ten BCB bosses under Kon (R2 also discussed Kon’s background, but the details are not found elsewhere and therefore cannot be cross-referenced for verification). During the conversation, he not only correctly referred to the BCB, Mui Tao, as being under Kon, but he also discussed Mui Tao’s past as an actor: Mui Tao was a lead actor in a 1984 Hong Kong film, Sang Gong Kei Bing (Long Arm of the Law), in which many BCB were recruited as actors since it was a film about the BCB’s violent robberies in Hong Kong. Although Mui Tao’s role in this film is discussed in Sack’s (2001) book, the title of the film is not mentioned. R2 stated that the film is a candid representation of the first-generation BCB in Hong Kong.
- 20.
The triads did not have an effect on the BCB’s choice to remain in or to leave Hong Kong, and there was no ‘truce deal’ of any type (Chu 2008). In fact, the threat posed by the BCB was understood to be one of the reasons why the triads were looking to establish footholds abroad (Pan 1990: 343–344).
- 21.
R7 (2008) explains: ‘Well the reason they chose North America was always the same, because of the presence of people you know: relatives and friends, criminal contacts, opportunity to enrich yourself, which is why so many of the Chinese criminals went to New York because to them, that’s where the money was. I used to get complaints amongst Hong Kong criminals in Toronto from 1977 to 1979 that there was no money there. There just were not enough rackets to keep everybody earning lots of money, whereas in Hong Kong there were lots of rackets, lots of underground gambling, lots of prostitution, lots of drugs, and lots of extortion, Toronto just didn’t have it, it just didn’t have that scale of crime that they needed to make a lucrative living for themselves, so that’s why they used to try and go to New York. That’s what it is, it’s opportunity, it’s a mountain of gold they’re all searching for; criminals are always in search of easy money.’
- 22.
Even up until the 1970s, the Canadian city with the largest ethnic-Chinese population—Vancouver—had the bulk of its population subset comprised of people originating from the Sze-Yap region of Guangdong province (Con and Wickberg 1982).
- 23.
Tsoi Chi Ming was shot to death in the early 1990s in the building where he worked in Hong Kong.
- 24.
The distinction drawn between genuine refugee and bogus refugee in this instance is that although political persecution is a valid reason for one to apply for political refugee status in Canada, many made false claims: ‘the refugee policy in Canada is basically for political refugees, and I would say these are economic refugees; China was not in war at the time, only when a country is in a war and then people can come in as genuine refugees; then again since the Chinese government never considered them as refugees, because they are not in war’ (R4 2008). Furthermore, as Knowles (2007: 222) explains, asylum-seekers differ from genuine refugees in that the former are ‘people who arrived on Canada’s doorstep claiming refugee status, but who all too frequently did not qualify as refugees under the United Nations Convention of 1951 and its 1967 protocol.’
- 25.
Another reason why the Chinese government was not keen on helping the deportees to return to China may have been due to the fact that, as some have noted, the police intelligence at the time indicated that some individuals within the second generation were criminals wanted by the Chinese government or the Hong Kong authorities (Lee 1990; R4 2008; R7 2008).
- 26.
For examples of immigration services advertisement for Canada from Hong Kong newspaper archives, see Pan (1990: 360).
- 27.
The process by which the BCB built their global network of contacts and bases through smuggling themselves abroad is to be discussed in Chapter 9.
- 28.
Lee (1990) describes in more detail in his report: ‘Since 1990, Hong Kong has been experiencing an increase in armed robberies reminiscent of the early seventies. A new breed of BCB has emerged and the violence has since escalated to the use of semi-automatic assault rifles (AK47s) and hand grenades (Chinese made, circa WWII), multiple premises robberies and indiscriminate shootings. They operate in groups of threes and fours and up to seven. They could be best described as desperados who are illegal aliens in Hong Kong out for a quick buck. Once they have made some money, they would then return to mainland China.’
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Chung, A. (2019). BCB Origins. In: Chinese Criminal Entrepreneurs in Canada, Volume I. Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05132-7_3
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