Deportation of Reputed Mobster to Taiwan Sought

U.S. immigration authorities and Taiwanese officials are trying to deport a reputed Asian organized crime leader to Taiwan to face murder and robbery charges.

At a hearing scheduled for this afternoon, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and representatives from Taiwan’s Criminal Investigations Bureau plan to ask a federal judge to deny bail to Kuei-Chun Tung, 35, before deportation proceedings. Tung, who also uses the name Benson Wang, was arrested Monday in his Alhambra home on suspicion of holding a false passport.

INS officials and Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators believe Tung is the leader of a San Gabriel Valley “cell” of the United Bamboo--a Taipei-based organized crime group linked to drug trafficking and money laundering operations. Tung is wanted in Taiwan on charges of robbing and murdering a family of seven in the Philippines, said Sgt. Thomas Budds, head of the sheriff’s Asian Organized Crime Unit.