On a sweltering summer afternoon in 1976, Ah Biu, a man of medium build, and his right-hand man Ah Hung, were seated at a table for 12 near the first floor entrance of the Tai Loy Restaurant overlooking the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market.
The two sipped tea and discussed "business." Ho Yung, a bodyguard, led "Chubby," a stocky man in short sleeves, up the stairway to meet Ah Biu. The men exchanged a few words before Ah Hung handed Chubby a few hundred dollars. The visitor paused briefly to count the payment, and drew a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his sweaty brow, inadvertently showing the revolver slung from his belt. As Chubby took the stairs out of the restaurant, he passed 30-year-old Hak Chai and a lanky man with a dark complexion who had also come to see Ah Biu and his crew.
Chubby was a Sergeant with the Special Duties Squad, which policed vice, gambling and drugs, at the Yau Ma Tei Police District, while the lanky man was an off-duty uniformed police constable in the same District. Both were acquaintances of Ah Biu and visited the Tai Loy once a week to collect bribes for not taking action against a drug retail syndicate spearheaded by Ah Biu. Hak Chai was a "bagman" who earned his living collecting and delivering bribes to the Police Anti Triad Squad in Yau Ma Tei.
The three men were just a few amongst those who paid regular visits to the Tai Loy regularly to collect money. Apart from police officers, there were also officers serving in Preventive Service of the Commerce and Industry Department (the precursor of today's Customs and Excise Department) and other bagmen who collected bribes for the many corruption syndicates who were taking their cut of Ah Biu's business.
Note : All names and nicknames given to the defendants and suspects in the story are fictitious. The restaurant and corner store referred to in the story were closed long ago.
Three decades ago, opium-smoking in Hong Kong began to wane. In its place, heroin (know locally as “white powder”) was gaining rapid popularity among drug takers. Addicts at the time were mainly manual workers and drug trafficking transactions were mostly conducted in grubby alleys.
In the mid-1970s, a narcotics retail syndicate quietly emerged in the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market in West Kowloon. It began as a modest and clandestine operation, peddling only small packets of heroin to addicts. The illicit business gradually grew in volume and brazenness, with only the slightest pretence. The syndicate's daring defiance of the law was possible because traffickers had the "long arm of the law" reaching comfortably into their pockets. Most law enforcement officers who mattered in the area were on the take, and in return they offered protection, cover-ups, and tip-offs ahead of real crackdowns. The syndicate was consequently free to operate and better still, without competition from other drug rackets.
Not surprisingly, such barefaced operation would sooner or later catch the eyes of the authorities. A major operation by the Police Narcotics Bureau eventually smashed the drug syndicate and nabbed the mastermind and his henchmen, and brought to light the scale and extent of corruption among law enforcement officers. Subsequently, the ICAC took over the investigation and sprang into action. Within months, more than 200 people were detained for questioning, among them police constables, station sergeants, dangerous drug squad officers and anti-smuggling squad members. Two major operations over consecutive days alone netted over 80 suspects.
The consequences were far-reaching. The exposure of the corruption syndicates in the government sounded the death knell for other syndicates still offering protection to criminals. The mass arrests dealt severe blow to criminal activities and garnered community support and endorsement for the anti-corruption cause. For the ICAC, the Fruit Market corruption crackdown is a milestone triumph in its fight against syndicated graft.