How an alleged Chinese crime boss escaped to Vancouver

 

Province deputy editor Fabian Dawson recaps how an Asian crime godfather landed in Vancouver and details his connections, as Immigration Canada moves to deport the gangster and his family after 17 years.

Immigration Canada’s attempt to remove a Macau crime godfather, who has been living in Richmond for the past 17 years with his family, will once again shed a spotlight on a dark period for the government agency when corruption and incompetence allowed many Asian criminals to enter Canada.

Their organizations, which have taken root in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada, have been linked to local murders, underground banks in Hong Kong, triad wars in the gambling Mecca of Macau, extortion of schoolchildren in Vancouver, illegal weapons trade, credit-card fraud and even arms shipments.

Immigration Canada has confirmed that Tong Sang Lai, a.k.a. Lai Tong San, his wife Sap Mui Vong, whose last known address was on Bowcock Drive in Richmond, and their three children are scheduled for an admissibility hearing over three days, beginning Feb. 26, in Vancouver.

Government lawyers will argue the known gangster and his family lied about their criminal connections in order to gain entry into Canada — a fact well documented by The Province since their arrival on Oct. 20, 1996.

Immigration Canada won’t say why the case has taken so long or what, if any, new evidence has been brought forward to determine now that Tong and his family cannot stay in Canada.

But sources said that in addition to a reprise of his escape to Canada, the hearing will likely be told of their family life in B.C. that will range from suspected visits back to Macau to link up with junket operations run by known criminals and acts of local philanthropy, including donations to the B.C. Children’s Hospital.

The Province exposed Tong’s presence in Vancouver in July 1997, reporting that an international investigation had been launched to determine how a notorious Asian gangster ended up living in Vancouver as a landed immigrant.

At that time, the gangster who also went by the name Shui Fong Lai, alias Dragon Head Lai, had escaped a crackdown on warring triads in Macao and had moved into a $750,000 east Vancouver home on Fraserview Drive with his wife and children.

Our investigation showed that Tong, who was 42 at that time, slipped into Vancouver via Los Angeles using an elaborate plan that was devised as early as 1994.

He was then the leader of the 3,000-strong Wo On Lok, also known as the Shui Fong (Water Rats) triad, which had been linked to the operations of Macau gambling czar Stanley Ho. Ho has been feted and wooed and given medals by the likes of former prime ministers Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney, and several premiers of British Columbia.

Tong had been an active gang member since he was a teen and started out as “street muscle,’’ and soon graduated to money laundering and racketeering.

The powerful Shui Fong’s thugs in the mid-’90s has been embroiled in a bloody battle with the 14K triad, which is based in Hong Kong, for control of Macao’s lucrative gambling and loansharking business.