Police remove an injured man from the sampan after he jumped into the water to escape fight between triad gangs in Sai Kung in 2018 Photo: on.cc
The triad society active in Sai Kung is the Shui Fong, according to a new book. Traditionally, this triad, like the other three, 14K, Wo Shing Wo and Sun Yee On, ran operations in drugs, prostitution and control of night clubs, massage parlours and mahjong dens, but times have changed, the police are more effective and incorruptible, mostly. Now the triad concentrates on white collar crime: loan sharking, fraud, cryptocurrencies, underground banking, cross-border money laundering and cybercrime. Shui Fong translates as “water factory” because the triad began as an organised labour association at the Connaught Aerated Water Co. at Sham Shui Po in the 1930s. It has spread internationally, including to the UK and Canada.
The book (in Chinese only), “From Hung League and Huidang to Modern Triads”, is by Gregory Lau Tat-keung*, a former police superintendent. He describes triad initiation ceremonies: A sacred altar draped with command banners and ancestral tablets honouring former gang members was set up. Recruits had to recite secret verses, light joss sticks and be covered with sandpaper quilts. They shredded paper lotuses, chopped a chicken’s head to seal a blood oath and swore by 21 regulations, 10 prohibitions and 10 punishments.
Triads are still active today another former police superintendent, Stuart McDouall, writes in his book Of God, King and Country**. The Cheung Chau Bun Festival is a day when the triads perform in public. Similar rituals take place at Sai Kung’s offshore islands. When the Shatin Jockey Club race course opened triads competed to control the illegal bookmaking. Stuart, a former Organised Crime and Triad Society Bureau boss, writes the police used “divide and conquer tactics” to stop the triads muscling in.
At Chinese new year columns of gaily dressed “sports association” members tour the streets of Sai Kung visiting shops lion dancing and holding out their hands for red packets. Shop keepers dare not refuse. Stuart, a friend, has told me some, if not all, of these “sports associations” are fronts for triads.
In the past SAI KUNG BUZZ has twice interviewed local police chiefs. Both said triads in Sai Kung were under control. There was minor extortion by thugs over waterfront parking meters, but the police stepped up patrols and cracked down if necessary. We have asked local restaurateurs if triads have tried to extort money from them. All said, no.
The only incident of triad activity we have seen personally occurred in O Tau. A house was splashed with red liquid, despite the presence of children. We were told this was a triad warning because of a dispute. Apparently a property owner had demanded a large sum to open the village gate for a rival developer. Also a woman we know, Betty, was defrauded of $150,000 in a romance scam, perhaps this was triad, too.
Latest figures from the Triad Bureau show there were 2554 triad-related crimes reported in 2022, up 35 per cent from the previous year.
The police warn everyone should be careful, don’t be hoodwinked, check and check again: Criminal groups use platforms like Telegram, Signal and gaming chat rooms to lure recruits, especially gullible young people, as “employment agents” offering quick cash or tricking them into laundering money through bank accounts. Scam cases are rife: 26,670 reported in the first eight months of 2026.
* ๆดช้ใๆ้ปจๅฐ็พไปฃ็้ป็คพๆ (From Hung Mun and Secret Societies to Modern Triads) by ๅ้ๅผท (Lau Tat-keung), Published in January 2026 by ๅคฉๅฐๅๆธ (Cosmos Books) ISBN 9789888551866
** Pro Deo, Rege Et Patria: For God, King and Country by Stuart Mcdouall. AuthorhouseUK, 2025. ISBNย 13:9798823090636
Selected Triad-related stories in BUZZ over the past ten years.
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