Mounties: Clinton Donor a Gangster

Mounties: Clinton Donor a Gangster
 
Canadian police have identified Clinton donor and Macao gambling tycoon Stanley Ho as the leader of a triad gang of organized criminals with strong ties to Communist China.

President Clinton personally accepted $250,000 from a Macao gambling tycoon whom Canadian police identify as a ``leader'' of a Chinese triad, or organized-crime syndicate. Insight has obtained a copy of the Asian Organized Crime Roster of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, listing Stanley Ho - who handed the check to Clinton at a 1997 White House reception to fund the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial - as a suspected ``member/leader'' of the notorious Kung Lok triad. (Click to read the document.)

This is the first concrete indication that a major Western law-enforcement agency considers Ho an organized-crime figure. Earlier reports characterized Ho as ``associated'' with the triads, but not a ``leader'' or ``member.'' According to a separate Canadian Security Intelligence Service report, the triads are involved in ``drug trafficking; money laundering; corruption; computer-software piracy; credit-card forgery and fraud; counterfeit currency and identification operations; and migrant smuggling. They will often provide direction to Chinese gangs in exchange for the `muscle' needed in some triad operations.''

The alleged Ho triad connection broke March 9 as a local story in a Vancouver newspaper, which reported Ho's ties to two former premiers of British Columbia, the Canadian province of which Vancouver is the capital. Ho owns real estate in the city. Vancouver also is Canada's principal center for trade with Asia and home to a vibrant ethnic-Chinese community.

The Vancouver Province reported that senior Canadian politicians - including former prime minister Brian Mulroney and members of current Prime Minister Jean Chretien's Cabinet - have ``feted and wooed'' Ho, and that ``despite the listing 10 years ago, Ho has unfettered access to Canada and its top politicians and is a major contributor to political parties in Canada.'' The RCMP roster, first issued in 1990, remains current, according to the report.

Ho spokeswoman Julie Fernandes categorically denies any links between Ho and organized crime, telling the Province, ``Dr. Ho has been cleared by the Americans and also your government [in Canada]. Why don't you believe your own government?''

Ho is fighting allegations in the congress and news media of the Philippines, where he has new gambling and restaurant ventures, that he is connected with the triads. ``I have nothing to do with the triads,'' he said on Philippines television in January. ``I don't think I have ever heard of such a name.''

For centuries the triads have operated in and around China, as well as in the former Portuguese colony of Macao, where Ho's gambling empire is based. A National Defense University study says that ``the triads could become the most dangerous organized criminal group in the 21st century.''

Insight's copy of the RCMP roster identifies Ho Hung Sun, alias Stanley Ho, as born in Hong Kong on Nov. 25, 1921, and provides addresses in Toronto and Macao. After classifying Ho as a ``member/leader'' of the Kung Lok triad organized-crime syndicate, it assigns him the ``gang file number'' 89-1170.

A 1988 Justice Department list authored by then assistant attorney general William Weld identified Ho as ``associated'' with the triads, former congressional investigator Edward Timperlake tells Insight. Timperlake is coauthor of Year of the Rat, a book documenting ties between Clinton-Gore administration political fund-raising from Chinese interests and their effects on U.S. national-security decision-making. The book reported that ``Ho's triad connections are really quite extensive'' in his gambling partnerships.

Has the Justice Department ``cleared'' Ho since Clinton and Gore were elected in 1992? A Justice Department spokeswoman would not comment, citing privacy concerns. Certainly, the Mounties have not cleared Ho: An RCMP Asian Organized Crime detective familiar with the roster labeling Ho as a triad figure told the Vancouver Province, ``Nobody gets off it unless they die.''

Ho and his business partners have been mired in international controversy in recent months. One of his partners is Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, whose Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. company has taken control of port facilities at both ends of the Panama Canal, prompting concerns that they may become a strategic beachhead for Beijing. The Clinton administration has gone out of its way to portray Li and Hutchison Whampoa as posing no security threat to U.S. interests, but not everyone is convinced.

Peter Zhang writes in the New Australian, a weekly published in Melbourne, that Li is a ``front man'' for the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army, or PLA. Commenting on Li's planned investments in Australian electric power and telecommunications infrastructures, Zhang warns, ``Ordinarily I would advise any country to welcome a foreign investor. But Li is no ordinary investor. Just as British imperialism followed trade, Chinese military intelligence always follows Li.''

Li's Beijing connections ``are hardly a state secret,'' according to Zhang. ``He had been a close friend of Gen. Ji Shengde, former military-intelligence director of the PLA, who recently was arrested for corruption, and still is close to Gen. Xiong Guangkai, who had been Gen. Ji's superior. He is equally close to [Chinese President] Jiang Zemin. Most telling of all, probably, is Li's corrupt real-estate dealings with the brutal Chen Xitong, who is infamous for the instrumental role he played in the Tiananmen Square massacre.'' Li Ka-shing strongly has denied nefarious connections with the PLA. No allegations have been raised associating Li directly with the triads.

Another Ho business partner is Ng Lapseng. Described as a Macao ``criminal-syndicate figure'' with hotel operations in the former Portuguese colony, Ng also reportedly is linked to prostitution rackets - and allegedly ran hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal money into the Clinton-Gore campaigns. ``At least $2 million, much of it illegal, made its way from Macao and other Asian crime centers to Clinton-Gore money projects,'' according to Timperlake and Year of the Rat coauthor William Triplett. Ng disappeared ``back into the murky world of Macao as soon as congressional investigators started looking for him.''

In the Philippines, President Joseph Estrada is embroiled in a Clinton-Gore-style fund-raising scandal that has the Manila stock exchange and Roman Catholic Church up in arms and made him the subject of a major investigation by the Philippines congress. According to Philippines news reports, Estrada crony Dante Tan helped persuade Ho to invest in the Philippines gambling industry and was a major stockholder in BW Resources, a holding company that Ho chairs and that is under investigation for stock-price manipulation and insider trading. Tan reportedly was a substantial donor to Estrada's 1998 presidential campaign.

The Philippines Stock Exchange Commission found gangster connections and what it described as ``prima-facie evidence'' against Tan and other leaders of the Ho-chaired company. Estrada vehemently has defended Ho. In a January news conference he proclaimed that the Macao gambling tycoon was ``clean,'' claiming ``these [allegations against Ho] are based on rumors.'' The Philippines president said, ``Show me the documents that this Mr. Stanley Ho is really a criminal or has a criminal record. We have no evidence.'' Later Estrada announced, ``We have checked with Interpol in Hong Kong, Macao, England, the U.S. and Portugal. There is no whatsoever.''

Philippines military-intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim told journalists that his service has no files on Ho relating to alleged drug-syndicate ties. According to the Philippines Star, Calimlim ``admitted though that the military has seen the intelligence reports from the United States and Canada concerning Ho's alleged activities but said matters concerning criminal syndicates are under the ambit of the Philippines National Police [PNP].'' Calimlim would not comment on the contents of the U.S. and Canadian reports.

PNP Chief Panfilo Lacson, a longtime friend of Estrada, says he found ``nothing'' on Ho, whose investments include positions in the China Ocean Shipping Co., or COSCO - considered the merchant marine of the PLA - and in Norinco, a PLA-associated manufacturer of automatic weapons. The Philippines Star reported, ``As far as the PNP is concerned, Macao gambling mogul Stanley Ho is `Mr. Clean.''' The PNP Center for Transnational Crime told a Manila congressional panel that it has ``nothing incriminating'' on Ho. A local group called United People Against Crime claims that Hong Kong police told Lacson that Ho allegedly was head of a criminal syndicate operating in Hong Kong and Macao.

Ho has taken out newspaper ads in the Philippines calling the allegations ``so vilifying and bitter and cynical as to be completely unacceptable.'' Ho said, ``The allegations are unsupported by any evidence and are groundless,'' adding that he looks forward to being vindicated by the PNP. ``I understand there is some sort of investigation being undertaken and I look forward to having my good name cleared.''
 Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin blasted Ho for his gambling empire and for bringing a plague on the Philippines. The cardinal also denounced Ho for publicizing a photograph of himself with a papal award, which Ho received a decade ago for large contributions to Catholic charities in Macao. The Philippines Star quotes the cardinal as accusing Ho of having ``abused'' the ``papal award and the graciousness of the Holy See by his having engaged in gambling,'' adding, ``The Church can be victimized by her unfaithful sons.'' The prelate added, ``The Church has no control over the business undertakings of its members and honorees. The papal knighthood should have challenged him to lead a morally upright life.''

Estrada tried to defend Ho's respectability by saying that President Clinton personally had received him at the White House for making the large donation to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, but being received by Clinton cut little ice in Manila.

The scandal could have major effects on the security of the Philippines and on U.S. interests in the region. ``It comes back to this: How can you modernize your defenses [in the Philippines] when the highest officials in your government are bought by the people you need to defend against?'' asks Al Santoli, a senior adviser to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has chronicled Beijing's military projection into Philippines territory.

A 1994 RCMP report says the triads seek legitimacy by ``ingratiating themselves with police, government officials and politicians. The easiest way for them is by making substantial contributions to charitable organizations, joining service clubs, donating funds to universities, sometimes obtaining honorary doctorate degrees, or contributing to political parties. Public photographs of triad figures with politicians is another favorite technique.''

One of the most successful means of reaching decision-makers, apart from helping them succeed in their private businesses, is to donate to their political campaigns or their favorite charities. Ted Sioeng, a businessman and partner with Ng in a firm called Ang-Du International, is reportedly a Chinese agent with alleged triad ties. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Ang-Du International ran a prostitution operation acquiring women from Thailand for Macao brothels.

Sioeng sat with Clinton at a Democratic Party fund-raiser and was photographed sitting next to Vice President Al Gore during the now-infamous 1996 Buddhist temple fund-raiser in California. Sioeng reportedly funneled at least $400,000 in illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee. Like Ho, Sioeng refused to cooperate with congressional investigators. ``He's a Communist Chinese spy, now in Beijing,'' Timperlake tells Insight. ``He was identified as a PRC [People's Republic of China] agent and fled the country.''

The Communist government in Beijing has built operational relations with the triads and often acts as a silent partner in their activities, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The 1997 report said that the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung ``wrote on the need to include triads in the united front'' in Hong Kong. ``In a May 1997 conference at Hong Kong's Baptist University, former deputy secretary general of Xinhua [the Chinese government-controlled `news' agency] Wong Man-fong said that in the early 1980s he was instructed to ingratiate himself with Hong Kong's triad `dragon heads' and offer them a deal. According to Wong, Beijing was prepared to turn a blind eye to the triads' illegal activities if they could promise a peaceful handover of the territory come 1 July [1997]. `I told them that, if they did not disrupt Hong Kong's stability, we would not stop them from making money,' said Wong. If Wong is to be believed, the timing of the beginning of Beijing's outreach to the triads dovetails nicely with Deng Xiaoping's resurrection of united front work in 1978.''

Triad enterprises also partner with businesses owned or run by the Communist Party and PLA. Hence there is no line of distinction between a Chinese criminal syndicate and the Chinese military or government apparatus, creating a danger that Beijing could use the triads for intelligence purposes.

The new Ho scandal is breaking just as House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois has released the second-annual CIA and FBI report on Chinese intelligence operations against the United States. ``Beijing continues to view the United States as one of its major targets for political [intelligence] collection. It focuses on the foreign policies and intentions of the United States as well as information on U.S. leaders and sensitive bi- or multi-lateral negotiations,'' according to the CIA-FBI report.

``China continues to devote attention to building political influence in the United States,'' the report says. ``The increased emphasis dates from the June 1995 visit of Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui - a visit that caused Chinese leaders to redirect resources towards gaining a better understanding of Congress and greater political influence in the United States. The same year, Chinese leaders created a Central Leading Group for U.S. Congressional Affairs to oversee the task of increasing support for Chinese objectives.''

The CIA-FBI report continues: ``Much like the rest of the world, the Chinese government continues to seek influence in Congress through various means, including inviting congressional members to the PRC, lobbying ethnic Chinese voters and prominent U.S. citizens and engaging U.S. business interests to weigh in on issues of mutual concern.''

However, there are big holes in the report. Its cover letter admits that it ``does not incorporate or contain any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, grand jury or federal criminal investigative information.'' That has some China-watchers steaming. Says a disgusted GOP congressional source, ``The speaker's office won't do sh*t about this.