From: xyang@bcars279.UUCP (Sherry Yang)
Subject: Passport to Crime -- news report from Canada 
Reply-To: xyang@bnr.ca
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 18:43:28 GMT

The following are the excerpts from an article in a local
newspaper: The Ottawa Citizen, World section
on Nov. 8, Sunday 

By Ben Tierney from Hong Kong

------------------------------------------------------------
"Police call the Big Circle Boys -- Chinese gangs -- the most
significant development in Canadian crime. All came here as
refugee claimants from mainland China"
------------------------------------------------------------

...

They are called the Big Circle Boys (BCB), or Dai Huen Jai in their
native Cantonese. 

They break into homes, beat up the occupants, and hold them in 
terror until ransoms are paid.

They also rob jewelry stores, often claying from city to city
to do three or four jobs in one week.

They traffic in heroin, participate in alien smuggling,
and are a key part of a hug credit card fraud scheme believed
to have cost banks around the world almost $1 billion Cdn.

And they have been routinely admitted to Canada as refugees over 
the past five years, police in Canada and Hong Kong said.

...

Federal government figures show more than 5,000 'improperly
documented' people have arrived in Canada from China -- home
of the Big Circle Boys -- since the beginning of 1969. Of course
more than 1,378 -- about 30 percent -- have been allowed to stay.

...

"I would conservatively estimate that at least 25 per cent
of refugee claimants that have reached Canada from China
are Big Circle Boys, or criminally intended individuals who will
behave like Big Circle Boys," says Tony Lee, a former
Royal Hong Kong Police superintendent who has studied Asian
criminals for Toronto and Hong Kong police.

The Big Circle Boys are from Guang-dong province in southern China, 
although recent police intelligence indicates they have developed
strong links with Fujian, the province immediately to the north.

With roots in the Red Guard movement that terrorized much of China
during Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution, the Big Circle Boys moved 
to Hong Kong in the late '70s and early '80s, and by 1987
found their way to Canada and the United States.

... 

Today, the BCB's biggest cash earner is heroin -- 99 per cent
pure No. 4 heroin shipped from the notorious Golden Triangle
between Thailand, Burma and Laos for consumption in Canada and
trans-shipment to the U.S.

...

All of those arrested were from mainland China -- believed to be
BCB -- and carried documents indicating they had imported 800 to
1200 pounds of heroin in the previous two years for a profit of
almost $90 million Cdn.

The committee also learned of a large scale Canada-U.S. investigation 
into alien smuggling -- the illegal importation of human beings at 
a price, usually upwards of $20,000 S a head, for exploitation as 
indentured workers in quasi-legal businesses.

"... over a two-year period the organization had smuggled over 1,200 
persons into Canada, including a large number of BCB, whom, upon
their arrival into Canada had applied for refugee status."

...

The BCB are also known to reap big profits from production and
world-wide distribution of "almost perfect" counterfeit gold
or platinum credit cards using information supplied by
corrupt employees of major hotels in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

...

The BCB use their alien smuggling skill and networks not just to make
money -- at least $150million a year by one estimate -- but also
to bring in new recruits, mostly men in their late 20s or early 30s.

...

Refugee status claimants from China almost always do not have
documents on arrival in Canada.

Canadian immigration officials say claimants have stopped tearing 
up and flushing their phony passports down the toilet when they 
approach Canadian air space. Now they hand the forgeries to escorts 
on the plane for recycling.

...

Another federal official says the favorite story of Chinese refugee
claimants since 1989 varies little from claimant to claimant.

"They say they were a democracy demonstrator in Tiananmen Square,
that a friend who was standing right next to them was shot, they
can't go back because CNN was there and the Chinese police saw them 
on TV and know who they are," the official says. "You have to figure
several thousand of them must have been standing on that same spot."

Funny, but not funny -- if the storyteller happens to be a BCB.

"You have to remind yourself what kind of individuals these people
are," says Det. Yates. "THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE RAPING CANADA."


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