Cemetery Slaying Victims Were in Gang, Police Say : Crime: The two men were paying respects to their slain leader when they were fatally shot in an ambush.

The two men fatally shot this week at Melrose Abbey Cemetery and Mortuary were identified Friday as members of a Mafia-type gang who were paying respects to their slain leader when they were ambushed by other gang members, officials said.

Cuong Duc Phung, 26, and Thinh Xuan Nguyen, 41, were both from San Francisco and had belonged to the Hung Pho ring, a criminal gang that engages in everything from robberies to extortion in a territory that stretches from the Bay Area to Southern California, according to Orange County and San Francisco police investigators.

They were shot to death Wednesday afternoon at the graves of brothers Hung Quoc Duong, 29, and Dung Quoc Duong, 28.

The elder Duong was reportedly the leader of the Hung Pho gang and was killed about this time last year in a gangland-style murder, Anaheim Police Sgt. Chet Barry said. His younger brother was shot to death six months earlier as he dined at an Oakland restaurant.

The Duongs’ mother, Nhung Le, and elder brother, Cuong Quoc Duong, live only a few blocks from the Melrose Abbey at 2303 S. Manchester Ave. They could not be reached for comment Friday.

After the shooting at the brothers’ graves about 4:50 p.m. Wednesday, two Asian men and a Vietnamese woman were seen running from the scene. None of the suspects have been located, Barry said. The handgun used in the killing has not been found.

“We don’t know whether (the killing) was about internal problems (in the Hung Pho gang) or gang rivalry,” Barry said.

Anaheim investigators are working on the case with investigators of the San Francisco Police Department.

The Hung Pho ring, also known as Red Fire, has been around since the early 1980s and has been linked to a wide range of crimes, including illegal gambling, loan-sharking, extortion and armed robbery, San Francisco Police Sgt. Dan Foley said.

“People talk about the Mafia. These guys are as brutal and as calculating, if not much more,” Foley said.

The gang was named Hung Pho because Hung Quoc Duong’s family either owns a chain of pho or noodle shops in California, or had owned such shops in Vietnam, authorities said.

Hung Quoc Duong was kidnaped in San Francisco on March 17, 1991, and his body was found several days later in Oakland, Foley said.

His brother, Dung Quoc Duong, was gunned down Sept. 16, 1990, at the Sun Hong Kong restaurant on 8th Street in Oakland. Police said Dung Quoc Duong was eating there with several friends when some unidentified men entered, a fight erupted and shots were fired.

Both murders remain unsolved, authorities said.

Nhung Le, breaking down in tears during a phone interview Thursday, said that Phung and Nguyen had paid her a brief courtesy call before they went over to her sons’ graves.

The two men had been friends of her children, she said. Le does not know if her sons or the two visitors were gang members, she said.

A Melrose Abbey employee, who did not want to be identified, has said that an hour before the double shootings a black BMW had circled the cemetery. After that, a Vietnamese woman came up to the employee and made small talk as if trying to distract him, he said.

Shots rang out minutes later. The employee said he looked up to where the shots were coming from and saw one man firing at two men kneeling at the Duongs’ graves. One of the victims stood up and staggered, then fell, he said.

The gunman then fled with another man and the Vietnamese woman who earlier had talked to the employee. Other employees, who also did not want to be identified, said the woman also was seen with the two victims at the Duongs’ graves before the shooting.