Twice Burned

Chong arrived with a network of contacts in place. A few years earlier, the organization had sent someone to do reconnaissance and build relationships with gang leaders eager to join a larger organization. Chief among these leaders was Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, head of the Hop Sing gang that had been chased out of San Francisco by the Wah Ching a decade before. Upon his arrival, Chong adopted Chow as his lieutenant in charge of the organization's day-to-day operations.

The two made a fine pair. Chong was lean and refined, Chow squat and pugnacious. Chow grew up in San Francisco, a street fighter with a history dating back before the Golden Dragon Massacre. In a sense, he was relic from the era when gangs had free reign in Chinatown. Chow was convicted for a string of robberies in 1978, and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was paroled in 1985, but two years later was arrested after he opened fire at someone in a restaurant. Although he missed his target, he was sentenced to three more years. He was released just in time for Chong's arrival, having missed more than a decade of life in the outside world.

"Chow was still living in the past when he met up with Peter [Chong]," says Foley. "As far as he was concerned, it was still 1978 when you can shoot up a restaurant if you're pissed off, and no one would say a word or ask any questions."

Chow had a loyal following of Hop Sing gang members in Oakland who enlisted in the Wo Hop To organization, but he needed to branch out. He began by opening a boy's athletic club in the basement of the Hop Sing Tong family association in San Francisco where he could recruit new members. Chow found a bounty of starry-eyed teenagers who had grown up on Hong Kong gangster films and jumped at the chance to join an international crime ring.

"Suddenly all the kids on the street were talking about the Wo Hop To," says Harry Hu, an investigator with the Oakland Police Department. "That was something we hadn't heard before."

As membership grew, recruitment became even easier. Before long, the Wo Hop To was assimilating little gangs into its growing mass, swallowing the Suey Sing, gangs from the Tenderloin and Sunset, even some factions of the Wah Ching. Chow made it clear that all gangs in the area would have to join this new umbrella group, or suffer the consequences.

As the Wo Hop To made its presence felt, Danny Wong, leader of the Wah Ching, was suddenly forced to decide if he would stand his ground or follow the crowd. Wong had been on top for so long, he decided to stay put, even against the advice of his confidants within law enforcement. "We warned him," says Foley. "We said, 'Hey, these guys are serious. You better get out of town.'"

But Wong wouldn't listen, until his closest bodyguard was shot dead. Then Wong lashed back, sending a gunman to empty 25 rounds into a car full of Wo Hop To leaders outside the Purple Onion in North Beach. Moments later, another gunman opened fire on a second group down the block. Two people were killed, eight were injured. Among those shot were the Tsan brothers, who had defected from the Wah Ching to the Wo Hop To.

Things were getting ugly, and before they got any uglier, Wong extended an invitation for a peace talk with the Wo Hop To at the Harbor Village restaurant, one of the most resplendent Chinese restaurants in the city. Sources told the FBI that the top leaders from both organizations attended the banquet, including Peter Chong, who offered a toast to a cease-fire. The gang commanders repeated the toast a month later at Chow's wedding, where the groom introduced Chong as "Uncle to us all." It appeared that the two sides had reached an accord.

Within a year, however, Danny Wong was found in his car with a bullet in his head, and the Wo Hop To had the undisputed run of the town.

Joe sits at the window of his restaurant along a busy Chinatown street, smiling as he thinks back to an encounter he had with Peter Chong almost a decade before. Only a few long strands of hair cling to his mostly bald dome, but Joe's smile reveals a mischievous, youthful vigor. The restaurant is empty and quiet, except for the bubbling of a lobster tank.

His was always a quiet establishment, with a few regulars and tourists on the weekends. One Saturday night during a summer in the early 1990s, he says, a loud group of young men came thundering in the door just before closing time. They ordered dozens of plates of food. "They bring in bottles of beer. They smoke cigarettes and drop them on the floor," he recalls, shaking his head. He clucks his tongue. "Kids. Boys."

Then almost as quickly as they had come in, the young men left -- without paying the bill. When Joe tried to stop them, they pushed him aside and strode out the door.