Gang influence on the wane

When Szu Ke (四哥), or Fourth Brother, owned a gambling house some five years ago, he could put as much as NT$1 million in his pocket in a single day.

"Of course, I could gamble away NT$10 million a night as well," said the 49-year-old senior headman of the Ta An Gang (大安角頭), who wears an NT$1 million Rolex diamond watch on his left wrist and an NT$20,000 sapphire silver ring on his right middle finger.

Now he seldom gambles, he said. Instead, he owns a construction company offering piping and water leakage repair services. His income fluctuates from NT$1,000 to NT$20 million a day.

"It's getting tougher to make a living nowadays," he said, lighting up a cigarette.

Szu Ke joined the gang at the age of 17. He started out as a body-guard at a gambling house, collecting debts for the owner.

In 1972, he was sentenced to five years in prison after killing someone in a fight. He got into trouble again in 1983 when he was imprisoned for three years on illegal firearms possession, and for one year on a 1995 charge of ordering someone else to commit a crime on his behalf.

Although he was finally found not guilty of the 1995 charge, he said he lost confidence in the judicial system and got sick of the KMT-ruled government.

For the miscarriage of justice, he said, he has filed for national compensation at the cost of NT$5,000 a day for the one-year jail term.

"Damn, even NT$10,000 a day in compensation couldn't give me back my youth," he said.

Just recently KMT city councilors Chen Hui-min (陳惠敏) and Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) claimed that Taipei City has nearly 5,000 gang members, and that the Bamboo Union is the largest gang followed by the Four Seas Gang (四海幫) and the Tien Tao Meng (天道盟).

But with Taiwan's economy struggling, the actual impact of organized crime groups is overrated and times for them, just like everyone else, are tough right now, Szu Ke said.

"The economic slowdown has literally pushed us to a state of hibernation. It's rather hard to grow bigger and stronger at this time of year," he said.

Frank Huang (黃富源), a criminology professor at the Central Police University (中央警察大學), agreed.

"Taiwan's organized crime syndicates are comparatively miniscule in terms of size and the way they make money," he said. "Take Japan's Yamakuchi Kumi, for example. It boasts a membership of 20,000, while Taiwan's largest organized crime syndicate, the Bamboo Union (竹聯幫), is estimated to be in the hundreds."

Huang said his studies show that Taiwan's organized crime has declined over the years in terms of size and quality of life.

"There are two major activities associated with organized crime -- violence and profits related to drug dealing, gambling and the porn business. But we don't see these activities on a large scale with Taiwan's organized crime groups," he said. "What we frequently see is gangsters forcing innocent young students to peddle cell phones or pornography."

He said his studies also indicate that organized crime syndicates make their living mainly by peddling drugs, accounting for about 40 percent of their income; human trafficking, accounting for about 30 percent; and rigging construction projects, accounting for about 20 percent.

Because most of the headmen of organized crime syndicates were forced out of the country during the large-scale police crackdown in the 1980s, the power struggles within the organizations have weakened their stamina, Huang said.