White Devil. Bob Halloran
and threats of violence. The dozens of young men he recruited and united were enough to demonstrate a show of force throughout Chinatown that left businessmen, pimps, and prostitutes very little choice. The power of Ping On was in the numbers, and as a result, Sky Dragon’s extortion of legal and illegal businesses required mostly threats and very little violence. With an army on his side, Sky Dragon could walk into any business or approach any individual and ask: “What’s it worth to you to refuse me?”
Businessmen were quick to understand the logic behind the system. Extortion became an overhead expense, and protection money was an investment in a security system. Businessmen who paid had nothing to worry about. Those who refused would be taking the risk that seventy gang kids might bust up their shops and restaurants, or they might ruin businesses by simply hanging out in front of them, thereby scaring away customers. Pimps and illegal gamblers couldn’t stand up to seventy gang kids either, and no one was willing to solicit the help of the police.
“In Chinese culture,” John explains, “it’s been happening for a thousand years. Organizations protect and take care of their people. Well, in Chinatown, we did the same thing. We protected, took care of the people. And the people know who they are. When they needed money to open a business, they came to the gangsters. They didn’t go to the bank. When they needed to, you know, put in a new addition on their house, they came to the gangsters. When they wanted to build a bigger restaurant, you know, out in the suburbs, they came to the gangsters. And that’s fine. And everybody paid their money. It may be something we would perceive as really screwed up, like extortion and different shit amongst businesses, like it’s all these people preying on the weak, but that isn’t the way it was.”
Sky Dragon ran Boston’s Chinatown in relative anonymity for several years. He appeared to local law enforcement as a law-abiding citizen who simply managed the Kung Fu restaurant on Tyler Street. Even the members of his gang tended to hold one or more low-paying jobs, which was not a common trait among criminals outside of Chinatown.
It was an intentional effort on Sky Dragon’s part to hide his gang activity from the police. It worked quite well until a witness testified before President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Organized Crime in 1984 that Sky Dragon was the head of Ping On, which the witness described as a “hard-core” gang with nearly one hundred members. The witness identified himself as a former member of the Ghost Shadows. Fearing for his life, the witness gave his testimony from behind a wooden screen, and kept his face buried beneath a hood, and only agreed to speak if his voice were altered.
The witness told the commission that Ping On was involved in everything from racketeering and prostitution to gambling and loansharking. The commission responded by calling Sky Dragon in to testify. He refused. He explained that Ping On’s “ritualistic vows of secrecy” forbade him from speaking, and he invoked his Fifth Amendment right eighty times. Of course, in acknowledging the vows of secrecy, he effectively admitted his role in the gang.
Sky Dragon wasn’t just loyal to an oath, however. He also told a judge that the tendency of the gang to “resort to violence against those violating such vows” made it unwise for him to testify. Sky Dragon may have been concerned about a small Asian man who burst into his Kung Fu restaurant wielding a gun and threatening to wipe out the place, or he may have believed the Boston police detective who told him there was a $10,000 bounty on his head. Either way, Sky Dragon wasn’t talking. Even the leader of the gang was afraid of reprisal from the gang.
Sky Dragon was offered immunity and given the chance to join the Witness Protection Program, but he told the commission he would rather go to prison, and so he did. Sky Dragon was held in civil contempt and sent to the Essex County House of Correction in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Sky Dragon served sixteen months of a maximum eighteen-month sentence.
While he was away, his criminal enterprise suffered and an influx of new gangs infiltrated Ping On territory. The Ghost Shadows moved back into Boston. Immediately upon Sky Dragon’s release from prison, they put out an order to have him assassinated. Local police inadvertently foiled the plot when they noticed a suspicious car with New York plates driving along Beach Street in Chinatown. They stopped the car and discovered three members of Ghost Shadows carrying an arsenal of automatic weapons.
When he was released from prison, Sky Dragon found himself in the middle of a very different Chinatown. The new Vietnamese gangs were far more willing to use violence first and make threats later. Sky Dragon was forced to step up his game.
He began by taking a ruthless killer under his wing. That man was a young Vietnamese criminal named Ay-yat, who coincidentally had grown up in Vietnam as Bai Ming’s neighbor. Sky Dragon met Ay-yat in prison, learned of his connection to Bai Ming, and recruited him to join Ping On when he got out of jail. Ay-yat knew of Sky Dragon’s reputation and was honored by the invitation. Ay-yat became a loyal follower and made it his life’s mission to impress Sky Dragon in any way he could, and that included luring a man to his death.
Sky Dragon got out of prison in March of 1986. Ay-yat was released a few months later, and within a year, a high-rolling gambler who had befriended and then betrayed Sky Dragon was dead.
Son Van Vu was a frequent player at Sky Dragon’s gambling dens and had no problem betting $5,000 a hand. He also had no problem robbing the same gambling dens with his Vietnamese gang cohorts. Unbeknownst to Sky Dragon at the time, Vu was part of a gang that defied Ping On’s control over Chinatown. They extorted money and robbed businesses known to be in Ping On territory.
At the time, Sky Dragon and Vu were friends, even travel companions. They took several trips to New York and California together to gamble and conduct drug deals. Sky Dragon was trafficking heroin and cocaine, and Vu was becoming a coke addict. Their friendship ended when Sky Dragon discovered Vu was involved in a robbery at one of his gambling dens. It’s possible Ay-yat was the one to inform Sky Dragon, because he had also become a close friend and confidant of Vu’s. Sky Dragon decided to use that friendship to his advantage and he paid Ay-yat $30,000 to kill Vu.
The plan was simple. The next time Vu traveled to California, Ay-yat would follow him out and kill him there. Sky Dragon explained that investigators would be less likely to look for suspects three thousand miles away. Ay-yat understood and was excited to have the opportunity to show Sky Dragon his courage and loyalty. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Sky Dragon, and without hesitation, he carried out the order to kill Vu on December 9, 1986, in Hollywood, California. Sky Dragon was in Hong Kong at the time.
Vu had a home in Oakland, California, and regularly went across the country to visit a couple of his favorite gambling dens in the Bay Area. He flew out in late October and welcomed his friend Ay-yat about a month later. He showed off his brand-new gray BMW 325E he had just purchased with his gambling proceeds, and the two friends shared many laughs. Vu was on a hot streak and feeling good, but his coke habit had gotten worse, which may explain why his already slight 5-foot-5 frame was thirty pounds lighter when Ay-yat saw him again. Not that it would matter. Vu would only be alive for a few more days.
It appears Ay-yat convinced Vu to take a ride with him. Where they were going is unclear, but they traveled four hundred miles before checking into the Hollywood Premier Motel at 5:10 in the morning. Ay-yat waited in the car while Vu checked in at the front desk. Later, as Vu slept, Ay-yat put a gun to his head and shot him once behind each ear. Later that day, when a chambermaid knocked and entered the room, she saw Vu lying facedown and shirtless. On his bare back was a large tattoo of the Statue of Liberty. Vu had gotten the tattoo soon after arriving in America.
“This was a straight professional hit,” Detective Butch Harris of the Hollywood homicide bureau told the Boston Globe. “They left the gun behind, but nothing else. In a case like this, it’s not uncommon to send a good friend in to arrange (the murder) or carry it out.”
Vu’s wife alerted police that Ay-yat had gone out to California to visit her husband. Ay-yat was interviewed about the murder and was considered a prime suspect, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence. The case wouldn’t be solved for another twelve years, when Ay-yat finally admitted to committing the execution-style killing at the request of his Ping On boss, Sky Dragon.
The murder seemed to embolden Ay-yat, and