Nomadic Asian Gangs Present Growing Threat

They live like nomads, roaming the length of California and well beyond, often staying in a new city only long enough to party or--if the money has run out--to find a new target, a new victim.

Police say they usually travel in groups of six to eight and are typically well-armed. And though they deal drugs, they rarely use them. After all, a muddled mind doesn’t serve you well when you aspire to be a master criminal.

They are members of Asian gangs, thriving on the anonymity of the road and a network of cohorts and family spread across the West by the vagaries of immigration, police say. Their favored route is the Interstate 5 corridor, from the Mexican port city of Ensenada to the harbors of Vancouver, Canada. But their true range is unpredictable, authorities say.

“The mobility of these criminals is the challenge,” said Vancouver Police Det. Bill Chu. “They have contacts up and down the coast. They’re not coming into town cold and they’re not here on holiday. It’s a difficult challenge, certainly.”

The challenge of tracking the small but dangerous segment of the gang population is one of the central topics to be discussed at the 18th annual International Asian Organized Crime Conference, which begins today in Anaheim.

A thousand law enforcement officials from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries are expected for the conference, which is hosted by Garden Grove police. High-ranking officials from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies are expected to join four Orange County police chiefs speaking at the event.

“The potential is there for Asian organized crime and street gangs to be one of the major problems for law enforcement in the future,” said Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg. “There’s disturbing growth in this area, and this conference is one way to stem the tide of that growth.”

Besides a seminar entitled “I-5 Corridor,” the conference--which will be closed to the media and public for most of its five days--includes discussions of Asian crime organizations involved in counterfeiting commercial checks, high-tech fraud, firearms trafficking and illegal gaming.

The criminals involved range from small but brutal street gangs to Chinese Triads, organized crime cartels that have existed for centuries.

For Chu and other investigators trying to clamp down on mobile Asian gang members, the conference provides an opportunity to duplicate the advantage enjoyed by their criminal quarry: a far-reaching network.

“They have contacts everywhere, so we have to make contacts everywhere,” said Chu, who added that he routinely encounters Westminster and Garden Grove gang members north of the U.S.-Canadian border. “It’s invaluable to have people in other departments you can call for assistance. It’s your starting point with some of these cases.”

The strategies used against traditional turf-gangs usually start with investigators getting to know the names and faces of local players. That tactic can fall short when dealing with criminals who call the entire West Coast their turf, according to Sgt. Jim Sully of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Asian Organized Crime Unit.

“These guys can do a home invasion in L.A., heist some computer chips in Irvine and then pop up again doing a restaurant robbery up north in Seattle or Canada,” Sully said.

Information exchange and sometimes good fortune are the best ways to track and capture the gang members, Sully said. “We look for patterns and we talk to each other, so when they do [a similar crime] again, when they get greedy or stupid, we can get them.”

A glimpse into the lifestyle of the nomadic criminals might be found in the February arrest of 11 suspected gang members in Diamond Bar.

A suspect stopped in a stolen car with Maryland plates fumbled for answers when questioned by police and inadvertently gave officers the only local address he knew--a home police believe was a way-station for a band of traveling gangbangers, Sully said.

Sully said police arrived at the address to find a 4,000-square-foot home furnished only with a dining room set, a fish tank and two mattresses in an upstairs bedroom. Property from three recent local burglaries was piled up in the house, along with apparently stolen goods from unknown crimes, Sully said.

A suspected gang member was subletting the home and used it as a “flop house” for cohorts passing through town, Sully said.

“We checked the addresses on the 11 [suspected gang members] and one was from Stanton, another from San Jose, Minnesota, Houston, a runaway from Kansas, two on parole.

“Nobody actually lived at this house, but they all had come to town with the name of a guy and a number to call,” Sully said.

One thing not found in the house was drugs, which don’t seem to fit into the lifestyle of profit-minded criminals. “Sometimes we’ll see [methamphetamine], but these guys are into it for the enterprise,” Sully said. “They want to be a businessman the best way they know how.”

There are no reliable statistics on the activities of these mobile gang members because their crimes vary greatly and occur in so many jurisdictions, authorities said. Investigators agree that the traveling Asian gang phenomena began in the early 1980s and has grown substantially in the past five years.

The groups often set out on trips with no notice, no set destination, no luggage, “not even a toothbrush,” Chu said. Some are on the run for fun, others because they are dodging warrants, police say. Gambling, karaoke clubs and drinking provide recreation, while crime pays the bills. Many younger gang members are without parental supervision or school ties, drifting on their own.

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The gang members are often recruited as foot soldiers by older members of Asian organized crime groups, police said. These large, often international crime syndicates are a source of money and coveted opportunities for the junior criminals, police said.

Police say many of the members have embraced the fashion and symbols of black and Latino gangs, wearing baggy pants, crafting graffiti to represent their cliques and flashing gang hand signals. They mix those modern street sensibilities with the ordered criminal enterprises of traditional Asian crime syndicates, investigators say.

“We have to know their mind set to predict their next move,” Sully said. “You don’t have to want to take them home for dinner, but you do have to understand them and what they do if you want to be successful.”

Visiting gang members often rely on their local friends to suggest ripe targets for home invasions and burglaries, according to Det. Randy Yen of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.

“They hit town and their buddies here say, ‘Hey, I know where there’s some easy money, an easy hit,’ ” Yen said. “The locals set it up. We had a recent double murder-robbery in Sacramento and the bad guys jetted up to Seattle, where they got caught for a jewelry store robbery. Someone up there probably helped them out with that target.”

An outsider armed with the knowledge of a local can make for a tough criminal to track, police said. The matter becomes more complicated because the roving gang members typically target their own ethnic communities, which are often insular enclaves with an imported tradition of distrusting law enforcement.

“These are people that keep a lot to themselves,” said Chu, who has worked in Vancouver’s Asian communities for 17 years.

“We’ve come a long way from how it used to be. We have our foot in the door now. People are more likely to report crimes now and to tell us things, but I’m certain there are things we never hear about.”