Speaker 1: Kushkin.
Speaker 2: This season of The Chinatown Sting has been about the
Speaker 2: rise and fall of one gang, in particular the Flying Dragons.
Speaker 2: I tried over and over it to get the perspective
Speaker 2: of someone who'd actually been in the gang, but no
Speaker 2: one was willing to speak to me until now today.
Speaker 2: An interview with someone who's going to tell us about
Speaker 2: the harsh life he led in the gang, how it
Speaker 2: recruited kids, and how it all came to an end
Speaker 2: for him. I'm Lady Jane Kott, and this is a
Speaker 2: special bonus episode of.
Speaker 1: The Chinatown Sting.
Speaker 2: Cowboy, who now goes by CB, came to the US
Speaker 2: from Hong Kong in nineteen seventy one when he was
Speaker 2: six years old. He joined the Flying Dragons shortly after
Speaker 2: he started high school. That was back when a man
Speaker 2: named Michael Chen aka the Scientist, was the leader of
Speaker 2: the gang. In nineteen eighty three, the Scientist was shot
Speaker 2: and CB managed to stay on in the gang as
Speaker 2: it acquired a new boss, Johnny Ing aka Onion Head.
Speaker 2: We actually heard CB's voice in an earlier episode. He
Speaker 2: was interviewed on the YouTube channel Chinatown Gang Stories.
Speaker 3: Onion was like a different regime. He was like, go
Speaker 3: out make money everyone. It was like the Soviet Union
Speaker 3: they disbanded. You give a freedom, they go, say to yourself,
Speaker 3: what the fuck I will do with it. We don't
Speaker 3: know how to make money except distributing drugs. So that
Speaker 3: was the new era.
Speaker 2: CEB would later serve almost two decades in prison for
Speaker 2: drug charges unrelated to the trial against Johnny, and then
Speaker 2: for racketeering. He was one of many Flying Dragon members
Speaker 2: indicted in nineteen ninety four. He was released in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven. I met with CB at a tea
Speaker 2: shop on Pell Street, right by the Flying Dragon's old headquarters.
Speaker 2: He was honest about how brutal the gang used to be,
Speaker 2: but not as remorseful as you might expect. I asked
Speaker 2: him why he joined the gang in the first place.
Speaker 4: Well, from my early days I was bullied.
Speaker 3: When I came to the country, I lived in the
Speaker 3: Bronx of all places, so my conditioning started there. Like
Speaker 3: I always said, this was like nineteen seventy one. If
Speaker 3: you look at my school year picture, I went to kindergarten,
Speaker 3: I think first grade, second grade. You see in the
Speaker 3: yearful pictures, you see some brown faces, some black faces. Wife,
Speaker 3: there's only one yellow face, which was mine in the
Speaker 3: whole school and maybe in that whole damn community. I'm
Speaker 3: not kidding, and listen, don't understand. Kids are the meanness
Speaker 3: every day when I went to school, it was an
Speaker 3: exercise in survival.
Speaker 4: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3: I was walking and decide the street with my little backpack.
Speaker 3: I see a bunch of kids that I walked the
Speaker 3: other way, but they always see me every day. It
Speaker 3: was like ing John with me, so I had to
Speaker 3: either fight of like that type of lifestyle conditioning changed
Speaker 3: me in a certain way to begin with, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. Long story short, fast forward. I'm in
Speaker 3: Queen's Vacational High School. There was a branch or the
Speaker 3: Flying Dragons there, the green section right there. So I
Speaker 3: had a run in with them and they accosted me,
Speaker 3: approached me. Back then, there was a thing with Chinese
Speaker 3: right when you see another Chinese person.
Speaker 4: They bethinking he's a game?
Speaker 3: Might not you approach him and you literally confront him
Speaker 3: and say where are you from?
Speaker 1: To find out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, which you would tell by your attitude and your responses.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. There's a purpose to that one.
Speaker 3: You could root out enemy gangs too. It's a possible recruitment,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And young kids all want
Speaker 3: to belong to something. And the reason why I chose
Speaker 3: the Flying Dragons was they had a moral foundation. What
Speaker 3: they preached to me and the originally was that we're
Speaker 3: here to protect the Chinese community. I mean it sounds
Speaker 3: a little bit hypocritical though, but they said that we're
Speaker 3: not supposed to deal with drugs. We're not supposed to
Speaker 3: hurt civilians, meaning elderly ladies, women, children, We do not
Speaker 3: commit rape.
Speaker 4: These are basic laws that they were told me. And
Speaker 4: I said, whoa, this is.
Speaker 3: Something I could get down with our apartments here, one
Speaker 3: of the cardinal rules was no girls can go up there.
Speaker 3: So our leader at that time, Michael chen Right, it
Speaker 3: was very serious what he did.
Speaker 2: He was a leader before Onion Head. Yes, and he
Speaker 2: was known as the Scientist.
Speaker 3: Yes, he had a lot of rules. He ran this
Speaker 3: with a strict iron.
Speaker 2: So you moved into one of these apartments here on
Speaker 2: Pell Street as a teenager.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: When I first came down here, my bed was four
Speaker 3: chairs put together. Oh wow, yes, you have to go
Speaker 3: to a probation. He tested you to see do you
Speaker 3: have the right stuff to be a full fledged member.
Speaker 3: Actually he also did psychological profile me. A lot of
Speaker 3: us were actually only sons, so we're looking to belong somewhere,
Speaker 3: and a lot of us, my fellow brothers a generation,
Speaker 3: we were all.
Speaker 4: Picked one and bullied.
Speaker 2: He needed people who really wanted to feel like they
Speaker 2: belonged in the gang.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna be like committed to it.
Speaker 4: Yes, because we were bullied.
Speaker 3: We wanted to fight back, but we didn't have the
Speaker 3: power fight back. So he knew how to profile us
Speaker 3: that way, and in retrospect, he built an army of
Speaker 3: freaking ultra violent people because we all had a common
Speaker 3: element of hatred for them.
Speaker 1: Shadows, which were it. Yeah, I was gonna say, not
Speaker 1: too far. Also, can you tell me about the war
Speaker 1: with the ghost shadows?
Speaker 3: But we foll every day almost right. But it's political too.
Speaker 2: Because you guys were both fighting for who was going
Speaker 2: to be the most important you.
Speaker 3: Know what, The line, or should I say, the indoctrination
Speaker 3: fit was that we are.
Speaker 4: The protectors of this community, not them.
Speaker 3: So in respect, we felt like robin hoods and we
Speaker 3: felt that they were the Antichrist, so we had to
Speaker 3: come back them I mean that's how that's once against
Speaker 3: that with teenagers too young, that.
Speaker 2: Was maybe they had the opposite story exactly.
Speaker 3: Maybe they were taught something else to this is what
Speaker 3: we were taught to believe it.
Speaker 2: And what was the relationship between because also on Pell
Speaker 2: Street you had the gambling parlor and then you also
Speaker 2: had the Hip Sang association, right, and what was the
Speaker 2: relationship between you guys in your apartment.
Speaker 3: And the because back then in the days, right, the
Speaker 3: FDS nine Joints was the military arm for the hip
Speaker 3: syns Okay under the Uncle seven regime, Uncle Benny regime, who.
Speaker 1: Was the head of the of the hip saying yes, and.
Speaker 4: He was he was finally looked at us like the
Speaker 4: godfather of China.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What about where were the Uncle Sevin's gambling houses? Where
Speaker 2: were the locations?
Speaker 3: Well, it's of information. Number fifteen's over there and the
Speaker 3: famous number nine right.
Speaker 4: Next to us.
Speaker 3: We had apartment upstairs which was used to monitor street
Speaker 3: activity and act as a protection over there. We had
Speaker 3: an apartment across the street there too and went down
Speaker 3: there too. So all this was a purpose of just sleeping,
Speaker 3: not partying, nothing else. And you also get use it
Speaker 3: as a place where you put the troops. You gotta
Speaker 3: be close by you close by the cloud. Think of
Speaker 3: it as troop barracks. Barracks were the soldiers.
Speaker 1: How did you get your nickname?
Speaker 4: Cowboy?
Speaker 3: Let's just say I was a little bit like like
Speaker 3: like the image goal, a little bit rampunctious and reckless
Speaker 3: when I was young, as I was small, I was
Speaker 3: the youngest of the crowd, young or small. But it's
Speaker 3: just it because I was picked on so much.
Speaker 4: I fight. Some people come out and put machetes on me.
Speaker 4: Every day was violence, you know when we were young.
Speaker 4: You know how we were trained to fight? Street fighting.
Speaker 4: I don't know even know.
Speaker 3: Back in the days, there was a lot of vagabonds,
Speaker 3: bums how you are called on the streets of Bowie.
Speaker 4: They lay all over the streets, all over. It's not
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 3: So our elders will tell us it sounds cruel to
Speaker 3: practice on them, but.
Speaker 4: We will kick them out. We're tell them to get
Speaker 4: off the street.
Speaker 3: We thought we're doing the service because they're lying front
Speaker 3: of the business stores and everything, and we're here to protect
Speaker 3: the neighborhood, clean up the airs, and we'll tell them
Speaker 3: to move if they don't move then, you know, obviously
Speaker 3: we would have to force him to move. And that's
Speaker 3: how weaking our training from to fight in the streets.
Speaker 3: Drop over a hat.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Otherwise, the normal lay person, you tell me right now
Speaker 3: to fight or hit somebody, you can't if you never
Speaker 3: hit a person. It's a little threshold that you don't
Speaker 3: know how to pass unless you did it already. To
Speaker 3: be violent or another human being is something else, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's not something i'm gonna say I'm proud of, but
Speaker 3: it's something that was conditioned, conditioned for us to be
Speaker 3: just like soldiers.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty three, the body of Michael Chen, also
Speaker 2: known as the Scientist, was found inside an office belonging
Speaker 2: to the hip, saying that community Association on Pell Street
Speaker 2: he had been shot to death. His murder was never solved,
Speaker 2: and the man who took over the gang after him
Speaker 2: would be a very different sort of leader.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: I'm back with CEB, a former member of the Flying
Speaker 2: Dragons gang in Manhattan's Chinatown in nineteen eighty three, after
Speaker 2: spending his early teenage years under the Scientists leadership, CB
Speaker 2: now eighteen, had to adjust to life under a new leader,
Speaker 2: Johnny Yang on your head.
Speaker 3: It was basically it wasn't so strict. It wasn't that
Speaker 3: many rules that you had to follow. Under Michael there
Speaker 3: was so much code of conduct. Hm, you have to
Speaker 3: carry yourself a certain way. You can't do this, can't
Speaker 3: do that. No, But on the onion is more or
Speaker 3: less like like we'll make money.
Speaker 4: But here's the problem.
Speaker 3: Well, young, all we knew as kids going up was
Speaker 3: rules and engaging in street violence. So it's only natural.
Speaker 3: The next thing that fell upon us was this dribbled
Speaker 3: drugs on a different level. Of course, we had the balls,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. We spoke English, so it
Speaker 3: was a natural choice.
Speaker 1: Why do you think Johnny like, why was that his approach?
Speaker 2: Why wasn't he stretched like like the scientist is.
Speaker 4: Different. He's not as.
Speaker 3: Controlling, you know what I mean, as controlling as Michael
Speaker 3: Chen was. So I guess there's something that fell on
Speaker 3: his lap too. I'm sure there's other people that want
Speaker 3: to step up for that position, but then there will
Speaker 3: be opposition. Here's one person with enough street creds. You
Speaker 3: have enough street creds and time in for people to
Speaker 3: respect you. You know what I mean, so for you
Speaker 3: to take that role, then people will fall in line, right.
Speaker 2: And out of everyone we've talked to you on this series,
Speaker 2: I think you probably know Onion the best. Like, how
Speaker 2: would you describe what he was like?
Speaker 4: What's he like? Person?
Speaker 3: You need to understand something in the streets. We all
Speaker 3: have a persona. Nobody breaks out a character, okay, and
Speaker 3: nobody really gets to know each other.
Speaker 1: That well, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: And I guess my nicknames Okay, they're not just for show.
Speaker 4: There's a purpose to it.
Speaker 3: I know my Elderns for like freaking years and I
Speaker 3: don't know his real name.
Speaker 4: There's a reason for that.
Speaker 3: If I don't know your name, I can never be
Speaker 3: informing on you. There's a purpose to it, right, So
Speaker 3: that's why everybody got these colorful nicknames, right. That was
Speaker 3: given sometimes because based on your personality or whatever to be,
Speaker 3: you will give a nickname and it sticks to you
Speaker 3: and that's what you'll refer to. Everything is on a
Speaker 3: need to know basis, and we don't know where each
Speaker 3: other lives.
Speaker 1: But what was his persona? Just that he was like
Speaker 1: a business.
Speaker 3: Guy, is much much more business like than Michael. It
Speaker 3: wasn't it didn't put up the airs as.
Speaker 4: Much like that was more casual.
Speaker 3: You could catch them just sneakers and jeans and a
Speaker 3: T shirt, very unassuming.
Speaker 2: It's so funny because if you read like the newspapers,
Speaker 2: they're all.
Speaker 1: Like Johnny who was always wearing expensive suits.
Speaker 4: Like not very unassuming. Yeah, you see him walk on
Speaker 4: the street. What's character.
Speaker 3: He is more interested in making money doing business as
Speaker 3: opposed to trying to control territory, get into war and
Speaker 3: all that stuff. All that stuff was just pass for us.
Speaker 3: That plus a lot of us became what's the word
Speaker 3: I look for. It's almost a little bit like post
Speaker 3: traumatic syndrome. By the time Onion took over, a lot
Speaker 3: of us been through many years of ultra violence.
Speaker 1: Johnny came, you guys all had some PTSD. You were like,
Speaker 1: let's make them everybody.
Speaker 3: A lot of us, A lot of us they didn't
Speaker 3: want to engage in the violence anymore. And also we're
Speaker 3: growing up. By the time Johnny came in, we were
Speaker 3: now in our late teens eighteen nineteen, so we realized
Speaker 3: one thing, ship we need money.
Speaker 1: Right, how to make the money in the drugs?
Speaker 2: But were you aware of the risks of like this
Speaker 2: was during the War on drugs. There's the mandatory minimums, Like,
Speaker 2: were you considering were you thinking about that?
Speaker 4: Of course not?
Speaker 5: You were going to say, of course we were thinking
Speaker 5: about th think about the mindset where gangsters real full
Speaker 5: time not weekend warriors gain that's the life we leave
Speaker 5: lived by this sor died by this type of thing.
Speaker 3: So it's part of it's all part of the experience.
Speaker 3: If you're going to be scared about that stuff, you
Speaker 3: can't be a gangster.
Speaker 4: Right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Were you thinking about the risks you were putting on
Speaker 1: other people?
Speaker 2: Like when you're asking the woman and the madrong parlors
Speaker 2: to like accept those packages of heroin?
Speaker 1: What could happen to them?
Speaker 4: No, like the.
Speaker 3: Moms Nope, nope, Because why here here's the thing. Nobody's
Speaker 3: forced to do anything. Really, whoever volunteers I mean terms
Speaker 3: of trade, would receive BA just they did it for money,
Speaker 3: all right, Maybe maybe you have to pick certain people
Speaker 3: that was down on their luck or whatever, but still
Speaker 3: it was through their own consent. I mean, honest, I
Speaker 3: myself received the package before. That's my first thing.
Speaker 1: That's how you started.
Speaker 3: Yet in that drug trade thing, I was paid twenty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Money, yeah, especially in nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it was a due or die job, meaning
Speaker 3: all you have to do was sit there and wait
Speaker 3: for the package to come. If the package passion comes in,
Speaker 3: you get it.
Speaker 4: It's clean.
Speaker 3: But it was intercepted. It was a sting operation. You're
Speaker 3: done right, you know what I mean. So it was
Speaker 3: a due or die thing. I did it once only
Speaker 3: because I knew it was due or die and nevertheand
Speaker 3: that I started to move up the chain of distribution
Speaker 3: instead of just being the meal of accepting, which is
Speaker 3: really started to find customers to distribute the product itself.
Speaker 1: How easy was.
Speaker 2: It to bring the drugs into the country, like to
Speaker 2: get the connections in Hong Kong, and.
Speaker 4: Back then it was pretty easy. It said.
Speaker 3: Technology was different, you know back then to send the
Speaker 3: package I we see was just wrapped around with toys
Speaker 3: in the middle. Part of it was the actual product yourself.
Speaker 3: Because a seven hundred grand brick is like a size
Speaker 3: of like a like a dictionary, like a thick dictionary.
Speaker 4: Big thick.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's quite big.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ten of them put together, Valo like a million dollars.
Speaker 3: It's about only this bay. It brings me to a store.
Speaker 3: When I was in China one time, right, somebody sharing me,
Speaker 3: and how to conceal these packages was to smear the
Speaker 3: inside of it with tiger shit figer feces. Yeah, I said,
Speaker 3: what you know why? This is what he said to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it worked or not, but he said,
Speaker 3: dogs have an intrinsic natural fear.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so dog, yes, it's.
Speaker 4: Going to it, they'll move away from it. Back then,
Speaker 4: that the fact, then the legend.
Speaker 3: Back then, the only thing to have with dogs and radar,
Speaker 3: I mean X ray, not like nowadays, to get it
Speaker 3: where they see him. You're figuring Adams, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. But I remember because I was in China
Speaker 3: and I asked some people. I said, listen, can you
Speaker 3: go do a zoo and find me some tiger?
Speaker 1: Actually did you do it? Uh?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Later on, when I started to try to move into
Speaker 3: importation myself, right, I actually found people in China. China,
Speaker 3: you understand, it's the death penalty to mess with drugs.
Speaker 3: Back then, we're still communists, you know me. So we
Speaker 3: took a lot of boards to do it. So I
Speaker 3: had to find people go to zoo. They give me
Speaker 3: some tiger feeces itself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did that message make it safely to New York?
Speaker 4: No? Not you to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a destination that was on the radar. And
Speaker 3: then I have my under links from Puerto Rico bring
Speaker 3: it back into the States. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: because that was easy coming into the state.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go to the Johnny's State in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: The shooting place? Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you never went? Oh you know I went to it.
Speaker 4: You went to it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Really? Yeah, when you mean later on, not when he
Speaker 4: was around.
Speaker 1: My good friend Onion had invited me.
Speaker 2: No, I went, like for reporting the podcast, it's now
Speaker 2: a shooting range officially, How can we never made it
Speaker 2: to Johnny?
Speaker 3: Well, under Johnny's regime, I was also doing other stuff,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I partner up with other
Speaker 3: members to distribute stuff, some of it his product, not
Speaker 3: necessarily or his products, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 3: like I said, under Johnny's regime, he being a businessman,
Speaker 3: and while we all still one flag.
Speaker 1: But you're kind of doing a different thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you didn't you didn't get an invite to
Speaker 2: the shooting.
Speaker 4: I mean, no, I'll be honest.
Speaker 3: You to share a story, right, Uh, Johnny was Obviously
Speaker 3: there's certain things that need to be done, like sometimes
Speaker 3: people need to bring money back to Hong Kong, right,
Speaker 3: and you would get paid an X amount of money,
Speaker 3: strap money on your body.
Speaker 4: To bring it back. Way.
Speaker 3: I turned down that offer, I see, because I said
Speaker 3: to myself this.
Speaker 4: I still remember.
Speaker 3: I said, when I go back, I'm gonna go back
Speaker 3: on my own court, you know what I mean. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go back, not as a worker, but under my
Speaker 3: own choice. And I did later on, Well, I call
Speaker 3: it court ambition, call it what you like, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. I'm going back as my own man.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to go back smuggling money for another.
Speaker 4: Guy exactly, something like that exactly.
Speaker 2: But the law would soon catch up with CB and
Speaker 2: with the Flying Dragons. That's after the break in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one, see, he was arrested for playing a role
Speaker 2: in a drug conspiracy, one that didn't involve Johnny. He
Speaker 2: was in the mcc that jail on your Chinatown awaiting
Speaker 2: his trial, and then he saw a familiar face, someone
Speaker 2: who he hadn't seen for a while one.
Speaker 3: Day I woke up, I came out of my tier,
Speaker 3: my room, and I saw the skinny guy standing in
Speaker 3: front of the common area. Now in MCC, I was
Speaker 3: always established.
Speaker 4: I was like, let's just sound. I was comfortable a
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 3: I had my whole surroundings everything, So I was, holy shit,
Speaker 3: who's that union. Probably at that time was just Extra
Speaker 3: died over here. Yeah, it was just Extra died and
Speaker 3: he landed here. I saw him as holy shit onion.
Speaker 3: But Lucky ran into me because I said, okay, you're
Speaker 3: my new roommate. At that time, I had cloud in pash,
Speaker 3: so I told the CELA, moved my guy out.
Speaker 4: He's moving into my room.
Speaker 3: But that only lasted for a few days because I'm
Speaker 3: sure the prosecutor found out had split this up right away.
Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, was he a good roommate.
Speaker 3: I mean he's my elder. I mean, I mean this
Speaker 3: thing that is good and not good, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. I still respect the fact he's my elder.
Speaker 3: So I did the best I can to hook him up,
Speaker 3: make sure everything is okay. Because in prison, right especially
Speaker 3: the attention center, the best spot is if you have
Speaker 3: a job in the kitchen passing out of food because
Speaker 3: inside there's not much amenities. You know, eating is.
Speaker 4: One of them.
Speaker 3: So when you have the spot as the orderlies to
Speaker 3: distribute food, then you hold everything.
Speaker 4: So I get a job in the kitchen to distribute food.
Speaker 4: But those are positions of Cloud in prison.
Speaker 2: So you hooked him up, yes, And what impact did
Speaker 2: his conviction have on on the gang?
Speaker 3: There's a void, you know why, because all the leadership
Speaker 3: was inside. Once you have upper management and even middle
Speaker 3: management gone, the rest just falls apart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's just like any organization legit or imit. And
Speaker 4: the FETs knew that too. The best know what they do.
Speaker 2: I guess I was wondering, looking back, do you regret
Speaker 2: bringing dregs into the country and your time being in
Speaker 2: a gang in Chinatown and extorting shopkeepers.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, though, when you like the way
Speaker 3: we so called extort shopkeepers, it's not like we go
Speaker 3: in there flip their chair. No, because all these they're
Speaker 3: all members of the association. Everybody over there is a
Speaker 3: member of the Online Association. Everybody this size a member
Speaker 3: of the hips In Association. So they pay their adues
Speaker 3: to the Business Association. Anyway, Now, we when we go
Speaker 3: approach these stores, this is the line we tell them.
Speaker 3: Can you help support the young the young brothers in
Speaker 3: the street. Sometime these restaurants, they say, sometime we need
Speaker 3: a place to eat, right, and in return, we will
Speaker 3: protect you.
Speaker 4: For real, we will protect you.
Speaker 3: You have a problem, because we're going to show up
Speaker 3: and we do stand by that.
Speaker 1: So you're more like mandatory bodyguards.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the best way they put it. It's I'm
Speaker 4: the Tory security guard.
Speaker 3: You have to hire this security firm, which we have
Speaker 3: the security guards with this whole neighborhood.
Speaker 2: But like I was reading testimony from people, because you know,
Speaker 2: there was there were these congressional hearings in Washington and
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, and there were a couple of people
Speaker 2: from Chinatown, like small business owners, and they testified at
Speaker 2: this congressional hearing about the gangs. And one of them said,
Speaker 2: I'm a manager at a restaurant located at the heart
Speaker 2: of Chinatown, New York City. Because my business location is
Speaker 2: controlled by a gang named the Flying Dragons, I'm constantly
Speaker 2: threatened and intimidated by them. As a manager of a restaurant,
Speaker 2: I have to try and show them a respectful manner,
Speaker 2: otherwise I put myself in danger. And they were there
Speaker 2: asking for, like you know, there to be a crackdown
Speaker 2: on the gangs.
Speaker 3: Basically, well, here's the thing, slow, We're not going to
Speaker 3: go in there and just intimidate you unless you don't
Speaker 3: go with the program. You have to go with the program.
Speaker 3: Every store has to follow the program. Of course, this
Speaker 3: section belongs to and US, so nobody can buck the system.
Speaker 3: Same as over there too on the other side. So
Speaker 3: I'm sure if he was bucking the system, then probably
Speaker 3: somebody had to say something to put him in line.
Speaker 4: Put him in check.
Speaker 3: Usually usually, like I say, they all know what they
Speaker 3: know the deal. That's the way they do business in
Speaker 3: China back then. If you know, being this neighbor around here,
Speaker 3: you had to pay your dues to the work association,
Speaker 3: the business association, and to us.
Speaker 2: So in your perspective, you are just like one tiny
Speaker 2: little part of like a system that was much bigger
Speaker 2: on every single street.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the way business was done in.
Speaker 1: China, I mean, but now it's not.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's not.
Speaker 3: It's I I'll relate my feelings. When I came back
Speaker 3: out after I was released from prison, right. I never
Speaker 3: felt so safe. I said, New York City is so safe.
Speaker 3: Do you know back then, when I was out here,
Speaker 3: right twenty four to seven, I say, every day I'm strapped.
Speaker 4: I have a gun on me every.
Speaker 3: Day, not because I want to hurt somebody, go I
Speaker 3: don't need to take myself, because that's how New York
Speaker 3: City was. Yeah, But when I came back out in
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven, I said, Wow, you could walk
Speaker 3: anywhere and you feel safe.
Speaker 4: They cleaned every day, and that was a good thing.
Speaker 1: Do you think the gangs will ever come back?
Speaker 3: Not like in that form. Nowadays you have a lot
Speaker 3: of crews five six guys. They don't have a name,
Speaker 3: but they are here to do business, not to make trouble,
Speaker 3: not to take over territory, and not to extort anyone.
Speaker 3: So you still have people that have to conduct illegal businesses.
Speaker 3: That's true of everywhere, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 3: in the terms of an actual crew raising a crime,
Speaker 3: the Feds did away with that already.
Speaker 4: Rico.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody wants to do that because right away you
Speaker 3: sell yourself for a recal conviction.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's better this new way of doing crime?
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna say it's better. Well, I know, is
Speaker 4: this Listen, the streets are safer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you doing now?
Speaker 3: I moved to different industries you now, I mean for
Speaker 3: a while I was in the KTV business.
Speaker 4: What's that karaoke? Now I'm in the restaurant industry.
Speaker 2: And what can you say about what Onion is up
Speaker 2: to now?
Speaker 1: If anything, he's.
Speaker 4: A businessman, legitimate businessman.
Speaker 3: I will say, yeah, he's totally legit because I know
Speaker 3: because he works his ass off. Uh huh, you know
Speaker 3: me in the industry he's in, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Very rough, Yes, it's very rough industry he is in.
Speaker 4: And uh, you know what I mean, he has his
Speaker 4: ups and downs.
Speaker 1: Can you say what the industry is there now?
Speaker 4: Seafood distribution?
Speaker 3: What do you.
Speaker 2: People learn from the story of like when the gangs
Speaker 2: ran in Chinatown in the nineteen eighties and then stopped existing.
Speaker 1: What's the taking?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I think the Italians has always been romanticized access stretcher
Speaker 3: in the movies and stuff, right, but really, little do
Speaker 3: they know that the Chinese were doing their own thing too.
Speaker 3: It's just that we're much more secretive. We didn't want
Speaker 3: that much attention, so it's also it's a part of history.
Speaker 3: We're just clarifying history and this part of what it
Speaker 3: was Nowwach.
Speaker 4: Everything is clean. It's great, you know.
Speaker 3: So at least I'm around to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 3: so that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, thank you. Should I call you Cowboy or.
Speaker 3: CV nowadays said by coming CB, I shorten it too
Speaker 3: much baggage.
Speaker 4: With the cowboy.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, CV, thank you coming on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. It's thank you.
Speaker 2: CB is a former member of the Flying Dragons. This
Speaker 2: episode of The China Hunstan was produced by Sonia Gurwitt
Speaker 2: and edited by Julia Barton. It was engineered by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Our music was composed
Speaker 2: by John Sung, with additional music by Jake Gorski. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Mike Moy of Chinatown Gang Stories for connecting
Speaker 2: me to CB. The Chinatown Staning is a production of
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Lydia Gene Copp