Last year, on March 24, in Rome, 47 Guests among Chinese, Filipino and Italian citizens, they were arrested after the investigations of District Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA) lasting sixteen months. The main charge was drug trafficking, specifically methamphetamines (shaboo, yaba, ketamine), which were imported into Italy and sent abroad; but also exploitation of prostitution with its annexes.
La news it wasn't extraordinary from the point of view of crime news, but it caused a sensation because the police had been helped in the blitz by the first Chinese turncoat: it had never happened before.
Who had told "of a solid criminal association-type structure, managed by Chinese citizens, active in the national and international trafficking of methamphetamines."
Chinese mafia: from past trafficking to global domination
The "solid criminal structure" could only be there Chinese mafia, better known in the literature of the genre, as Triads, which, for most observers dedicated to this type of rankings, would be in third place in the list of five most dangerous criminal associations, rich and powerful in the world. For the record, it comes after the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, which comes in first place, and the Russians of the Brotherhood, which come in second. For those interested, the Italians of the 'Ndrangheta would find themselves in fifth place, after the Mexican cartels.
The Triads and their weight in the criminal world and no, a few weeks ago, he spoke again John Paul Mari, one of the most brilliant French journalists, interviewing on Lejournal.info, Antoine vitkine, a well-known documentary maker for French TV, who conducted an investigation into the Chinese criminal association that lasted two and a half years and was later transformed into three films.
The first thing that comes out of the conversation between the two professionals is that everywhere there is a Chinese diaspora there are also Triads. And always.
In the 19th century, when the Chinese landed in the USA to work, for example, those who transported and housed them, and then exploited them, forcing their women into prostitution, to the point of reducing them to slavery, were the Triads. And today too I'm everywhere, more or less influential depending on the importance of the diaspora. The port of Vancouver, for example, in Canada, place of a strong diaspora, has now become a bastion of the Triads on the American west coast, where the mafiosi send the Fentanyl, a drug thirty times stronger than heroin, the components of which are manufactured in China, then exported to Canada and Mexico, where the cartels transform them in laboratories, then transport and sell them in the USA.
Why are they called Triads?
Vitkine recalls that the name was invented in Hong Kong by British colonists at the end of the 1644th century. In reality, with it the English simply wanted to define the hundreds of "secret societies", such as Freemasonry, which, born in 1911th century China to overthrow (unsuccessfully) the Qing dynasty (XNUMX-XNUMX), continued to represent mutual aid nuclei family and clan alternative to the state. Until they gradually became true centers of power whose sole objective, regardless of the means used, was to enrich themselves.
These "secret societies" were represented by an equilateral triangle, emblem of the harmony between "heaven, earth, man", the symbol by which the affiliates still swear at the moment of initiation.
Folklore obviously, which, as with other mafias, only covers violence e business dirty.
What are the affairs of the Chinese mafia today?
As is explained in the documents dealing with the topic, at the basis of the power of the "Triads" there is all the paraphernalia of crime of every latitude: the management of clandestine trafficking of compatriots and the exploitation of the workforce, extortion, tobacco and heroin trafficking, counterfeiting of brands, from the textile to the electronic sector. Over time, gambling, dirty money laundering, the exploitation of prostitution and speculation in the real estate sector were added, "an activity supported by the immense financial resources that allow mafiosi to purchase commercial establishments even in a higher price than the real one, effectively ousting the competition and creating real Chinese enclaves".
Recently acquired - we read in the research - "is the recycling of toxic waste, illicitly exported to China and transformed into plastic for objects (including toys), to be resold on the European market; this latter activity is conducted in synergy with the Italian mafias, with which, more than in the past, the Chinese clans have done business". There 'ndrangheta in the first place.
If criminal affairs are all a bit similar, what makes the Chinese different from other mafias, with Cosa Nostra first, it seems to be above all the fact that there is no Dome on which the entire organization depends. It would actually be about a decentralized organization, liquid, in which each group creates its own republic. At least according to the knowledge we have at the moment.
A Hong Kong, for example, which remains the basis of this mafia, were 58 Triad groups were registered, some of which are nothing more than street gangs, but others, such as "Sun Yee On", "14K" and "Wo Shing Wo", the top three in terms of weight, wealth and violence, bring together thousands of affiliates. And each group follows its own laws and interests, without responding to a Dome-type entity, as mentioned.
A Taiwan instead there are 300 of groups, ranging from 15 to 3.000 components.
Curious thing in Taiwan, unlike Hong Kong and the rest of the world, the Triads they are not illegal, as Vitkine always says.
In the sense that criminal activity is prosecuted, but not association.
Thus, the godfather of the godfathers of the "Celestial alliance”, one of the three most important mafia organizations, called the “iron tyrant”, in the documentary can present himself as president of the Triad, despite having spent half of his years in prison and returning there four days after the interview.
The Triads and their ambiguous relationships with the Chinese regime
It all goes back to the history ofTaiwan island and the relationships that have been established over time with Chinese politics.
The three main mafia groups present - "United Bamboo", "I Quattro Mari" and the aforementioned "Celestial Alliance" - turn out to be the heirs of an old Triad, the "Green Gang", coming from Shanghai, which played a role important in Chinese civil war (1927-1950), as an expression of the Kuomitang, the Chinese nationalist party, whose leaders Chiang Kai-shek e Sun Yat Sen, according to some, were themselves affiliated. In 1927, affiliates of the “Green Gang” contributed to the massacre of 5.000 communist strikers in Shanghai; and 92 years later, in 2019, in Hong Kong, they lent a hand to Beijing to disperse the Umbrella movement, those gigantic demonstrations of "different" Chinese who wanted to maintain their democratic system against the totalitarian one, once the region, as foreseen by the agreements, had been left by Great Britain in 1997 and returned to China. It was they, the Triad laborers who beat the demonstrators to death. The violence of the attack will terrify them so much that little by little the mobilization will die down. And today Beijing can influence Hong Kong politics more or less without problems although some burning embers remain under the ashes.
And in China? What is the place of the Triads in and around Beijing? What are theirs relationships with the power of Xi Jinping and Communist Party of China?
It's the question that runs through everyone three films by Vatkine which exposes two aspects of that relationship.
First of all, it is true that Beijing fears the Triads because they are criminals, because they compete in the management of power and for their capacity to destabilize. But at the same time there are a lot of Triads to evaluate to communist power for theirs influence in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
From here theXi Jinping's ambivalent attitude: understands the danger of crime and corruption, and therefore represses the Triads a bit; but he uses them in Hong Kong, as in the case of the Umbrella demonstrations, or elsewhere if necessary, depending on the needs of the moment. In Taiwan, for example, the Triads are feared so much that some come to consider them the fifth column of Beijing because - they calculate - if China decided to attack the island it could mobilize 3 brigades of mafiosi, that is, between 16 thousand and 24 thousand men , all well armed in a society where the 23 million Taiwanese have no access to weapons unless they are military.
And in Italy? What power do Chinese mafiosi have in our country?
First of all, let's start with the numbers: the Chinese community numbers around 300 thousand people in our country, which places it in third position among the main non-EU residents, after the Moroccan and Albanian ones. They essentially chose to live in Lombardia where it is present the largest Chinese community in Italy, around 41 thousand people, equal to 15% of the diaspora in our country. Then there are Toscana and Lazio. It is an old migration, they arrived in 1918, coming from France where they had worked in factories destined for war products.
And to return to the Triads in Italy they are considered, in the Dossiers of the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate (Dia) and of the Central Investigation Service on Organized Crime (Scico), as the Fifth mafia and, mirroring the diaspora, they operate mainly in Lombardy, Tuscany, Lazio and Emilia-Romagna.
They started, as in other countries, with their historic activities, from extortion to toxic waste trafficking to money laundering, like their Italian "colleagues" with whom, as already mentioned, for now there is only collaboration.
To this the Triads add the colonization of cities through the opening of shops and restaurants where they often employ extorted staff forced to perform arduous and humiliating jobs.
So a reflection to conclude: each of us knows a Chinese shop in our own city where they sell everything at a good price; or a Chinese craftsman who is always available not knowing any type of celebration. We wonder if it won't be difficult from now on, when we enter one of these places or ask the Chinese seamstress to hem our trousers on a Sunday afternoon, don't think that they are so helpful because they are victims of a mafia group.
Obviously we will never have proof of this. Repent aside.
