Secret societies have a long and even honorable history in China, where they were forced to operate in secret to counter the cruelties of imperial rule. China’s Triads were born out of the struggle against detested Manchu regime, but somehow these crusaders for justice embraced the dark forces and turned to crime. Today the triads are among the most feared criminal societies in the world, with activities ranging from the heroin trade to the smuggling of illegal immigrants.
The origins of China’s secret societies lie as far back as 200 BC. Over the centuries, secret societies flourished in opposition to the Confucian upper class, which prohibited any form of opposition to imperial rule. In those days, the societies attempted to stand up for the rights of the dissatisfied and oppressed lower classes. In the 17th century when the ruling Ming dynasty was overthrown by the Manchu, whose origins lay in Central Asia, many secret societies directed their efforts towards the expulsion of the ‘Barbarian’ Manchu.
Out of this liberation struggle emerged the Society of the Three in One, also called the triadic league or Triad. The emblem of the league was an isosceles triangle – whose three sides symbolized the basic forces in Chinese cosmology: heaven, earth and man.During the 19th century, the huge and increasingly fragmented Chinese empire gave rise to two systems of secret societies: White Lotus in the North, and the Triad in the South.
Their resistance was not directed solely towards the Manchu rulers, but also against the encroachment of European colonial powers. The 19th century saw the establishment of more and more foreign administered enclaves, with China forced again and again to accept treaties that favored foreign powers.
Not only did the ‘Long Noses’ destroyed the existing economic structures, they were the first ones to introduce Opium trade, because of which millions of natives became helpless drug addicts.
When the Manchu emperor abdicated in 1911, the Triads lost their most important political goal: the re-establishment of Ming rule. Over the next three decades, as rival warlords divided up the country, the societies degenerated more and more into criminal gangs. Initially they made money through piracy, extortion, gambling and kidnapping, but soon they entered into opium trade.
The British colony of Hong Kong became the center of many such gangs. After the Communists assumed power in China in 1949, the colony became the main base for the powerful Triads Sun Yee On, Wo Sing So, and 14 K.
By the early 1990s, these groups totaled over 75,000 members.
Rise of the Dragon
Because of the impenetrable structure of the Triads, it is difficult to gather information about their activities. The Triads are known to have operated in the UK and Netherlands since the 1970s, where they specialize in Loan- Sharking, Prostitution and Extortion.
According to senior officials of the Metropolitan Police, nearly every Chinese restaurant in London has to pay a percentage of its takings to the Eastern Mafia. The Triads are also active in drug trafficking, exporting heroin from the Golden triangle – a region covering the remote interior of Burma, Loas and Northern Thailand. In the US, the Drug Enforcement Administration maintains that 14K Triad is the biggest supplier of heroin in New York.
There is another cruel business that earns millions for the Hong Kong syndicates: the trade of Human Beings. Thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled into Europe and North America each year. In most cases they are desperate people in search of a better life, and generally have to pat the triads a fee of around US $ 35,000.Few of the applicants have money, so you’ll find the men working for gangsters in restaurants and gambling dens paying their debts off.
The women must earn the money through Prostitution.
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