Hong Kong police are stepping up an investigation into triad infiltration of casino cruise ships plying the territory’s waters.
A report in the South China Morning Post said police raided more than 30 locations earlier this month and arrested eight suspected triad members and later boarded two vessels to conduct inquiries. No arrests were made during the boarding, the Post said. The eight suspects detained in the first raids were released on bail.
Investigations are continuing, police said, prompted by concerns that a turf war between rival gangs competing for mainland gamblers could erupt in violence.
Some seven casino ships pick up passengers with shuttle ferries at piers in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom railway station, where factions of various triad societies work specified territories, offering free overnight passage to gamblers who buy large sums of discounted gambling chips. The groups operate much like Macau casino junkets, earning commissions based on the number of clients and the amounts the clients gamble, sums that could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, a police source told the Post. Loan-sharking is even a larger source of income, the report said.
However, the system has been upset in recent months, police say, after one faction began encroaching on another’s territory, sending in female agents known as fei sing to solicit clients on a street outside Hung Hom. The intrusion sparked “negotiations” late last month among dozens of mobsters in broad daylight outside the station, capturing the attention of police and sparking the raids.
“If they fail to regulate themselves in the underworld, police will take over and regulate them,” the source said.
