Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow


Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Kwok-Cheung Chow is a Hong Kong-born felon with ties to a San Francisco Chinatown street gang and an organized crime syndicate, including the American branch of the Hong Kong-based triad Wo Hop To and the Hop Sing Boys.
In 2006, Chow became the leader of the Ghee Kung Tong, a Chinese fraternal association based in San Francisco, California. In 2014, Chow along with 28 other defendants including former California State Senator Leland Yee, were indicted for racketeering, money laundering, and a host of other alleged criminal activities. Leland Yee pleaded guilty to racketeering in July 2015 for conspiring with his campaign fundraiser to defeat donation limits through money laundering. Despite initial press releases, Chow was not indicted in a racketeering conspiracy with Leland Yee. Chow was indicted in a racketeering conspiracy which alleged that he oversaw a criminal faction of the Ghee Kung Tong. Chow is the only co-defendant of 29 to publicly profess his innocence and ask for an expedited jury trial. His trial began on November 9, 2015. On January 8, 2016, Chow was found guilty on all 162 charges, including one count of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 20 years.

Personal life

Chow was born on December 31, 1959, in Hong Kong, then a British colony. He is of Taishanese descent, and had three brothers: two older and one younger. His nickname "Shrimp Boy" was reportedly bestowed by his grandmother, due to his small stature.
His father owned a barbershop, but lost his business to gambling debts when Chow was eight. The family moved into a single room shack for a year, until it burned down. On the program Gangland, Chow said he first joined a gang in his native Hong Kong when he was nine years old. After joining the gang, he intervened in a fight involving his gang mentor by striking his mentor's opponent on the head with a knife, becoming a gang hero in the process. Chow came to the United States with his parents at the age of 17, and dropped out of high school after approximately one month when he became involved with the Hop Sing Tong gang.
Chow has been married twice: to Anna Ma and Cindy Szeto. His marriage to Szeto was not registered, but they had a reception at the Empress of China restaurant at the top of the China Trade Center, and it ended when he was arrested in 1992.
After they met in 2008 until his arrest, Chow lived with Alicia Lo, her 11-year-old daughter, and two dogs. Chow had publicly renounced his former life of crime, and Lo, a UC Berkeley graduate without Chow's criminal ties, believed she was gradually rehabilitating Chow by introducing him to mainstream American culture. Meanwhile, Chow was teaching Lo Chinese culture.
Chow wrote an autobiography entitled Shrimp Boy: The Sun of the Underworld ; the title was later updated to Shrimp Boy: Life of Crime, Violence and Redemption Inside the Chinatown Underworld. The manuscript remains unpublished under a restraining order served to Lo in August 2016 after Chow was sentenced to two life terms in prison; no one may publish or profit from it until the government recovers approximately $255,000 in seized assets and fines.

Criminal activity

Chow stated he carried a letter of introduction from the leader of his gang in Hong Kong when he emigrated to San Francisco, joining the Hop Sing Boys. In an early incident, when he was 17, he was dropped off at a home in Hillsborough and was told to beat the resident to send a message from La Cosa Nostra; he finished the beating with the help of a two-by-four in two minutes and earned $3,000. One year after arriving in the city, Chow was involved in the infamous Golden Dragon massacre in 1977, dining at the restaurant with other Hop Sing Boys members. In the wake of the 1977 shooting, the Wah Ching were ascendant and the Hop Sing were chased out of San Francisco.

Armed robbery and mayhem; 1980s reform

Chow was first convicted of a crime in the United States in 1978, for an armed robbery in Chinatown, San Francisco which occurred on February 17, 1978. A victim identified Chow as one of a trio of robbers who had held up a group of 23 at a meeting of the Chinese-American Institute of Engineers. When one of the victims was being returned from the Hall of Justice, he recognized Chow's distinctive jade ring and medallion. Chow received an 11-year sentence for the 1978 robbery, of which he served 7 years and 4 months. During his first stint in prison, Chow studied to become a deep-sea welder, but his education was interrupted by a prison riot and he turned to dealing heroin inside San Quentin instead. He was released on April 30, 1985.
After being released, Chow stopped at a noodle shop on his way back to San Francisco; he convinced the prostitutes outside to work for him and set up an escort service. One year later, in 1986, Chow was charged with 28 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, mayhem, and illegal possession of a firearm, related to the shooting of David Quach, a Wah Ching gang member, at the Golden Key Restaurant in San Francisco. Quach had been in an altercation with Chow's sister-in-law, Karen Ma. Chow was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to serve three years in prison. He was released in 1989. After his second release, Chow said he tried to renounce crime and found work as a bagger in a Daly City grocery store, but he left that job when his boss became suspicious after receiving a phone call from the SFPD gang task force. He also tried to work as a bodyguard in an Oakland Casino, but met Peter Chong, who had recently arrived from Hong Kong, shortly afterward.

Involvement with Wo Hop To

Around 1989, Chong, a member of the Wo Hop To Triad, was sent to San Francisco, which was intended to be the first location for the Triad's plan to establish itself in America. Chong adopted Chow, then head of the Hop Sing, as his American lieutenant shortly after his arrival and the two formed an alliance. Under the alliance, the Hop Sing and Wo Hop To merged, and an umbrella organization, Tien Hu Wui, was formed to oversee their combined business. Chow opened a boy's athletic club in the Hop Sing Tong building basement in San Francisco to recruit new members, drawing from teenagers influenced by the heroic bloodshed genre of Hong Kong action cinema. Part of the initiation involved leading new recruits through a series of 36 loyalty oaths, promising death if any was broken. According to court records, Chow was also head of day-to-day operations.
Early in the morning of August 28, 1990, Chow was in the lead car of two that were stopped by police after making an illegal U-turn in Foster City. Chow claimed he was driving an inebriated friend home from a bar, but was unable to produce the registration and could not account for his whereabouts earlier in the day. Norman Hsu was a passenger; Hsu claimed he had been kidnapped but declined to implicate Chow. The officer noticed Hsu appeared to be nervous and was trying to get his attention. When he was able to speak privately with the officer, Hsu stated "I'm being kidnapped, those three have been holding me against my will in Daly City for twelve hours." Hsu then told the officer he was being held in connection with a debt he owed Chow, and that the safety of him and his family had been threatened if he was unable to pay.
At about the same time, the Wah Ching and Wo Hop To were struggling for power in San Francisco. Wah Ching member Danny Phat Vong was killed in April 1990 outside the Cats nightclub on Geary, and in retaliation, the Wah Ching killed Wo Hop To member Michael Bit Chen Wu outside The Purple Onion, a nightclub in North Beach, one month later. Wah Ching leader Danny Wong called for a cease-fire at the Harbor Village, and was toasted by Chong for his peacemaking efforts. The toast for peace was later repeated at Chow's wedding, who called Chong "Uncle to us all." Despite the apparent cease-fire, the violence continued, culminating in the assassination of Wong in April 1991.
Chong was summoned to testify before the United States Senate on November 5, 1991, and was asked if he was the head of the Wo Hop To, and if he was responsible or involved in the murder of Danny Wong. Chong declined to answer each question, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.

Firearms trafficking and racketeering

Chow was arrested on May 31, 1992 for suspected drug dealing at LaGuardia Airport while holding $12,000 in cash, which led him to believe there was a confidential informant within the gang. After Chow noticed Madeline "Mayflower" Lee's sentence was significantly lighter than her partners following their arrest for an attempted robbery, Chow identified her as the informant and twice ordered beatings of Lee. Lee noted the license plate of the getaway car after the first beating, which left her with a broken shoulder and missing teeth; Lee called Chow with the license plate information, asking him to find out who had beaten her. At his 1996 trial for racketeering, the prosecution alleged that Chow ordered her beaten again because she was insufficiently injured. During the second beating, a passing police officer intervened and one of the assailants, Raymond Lei, was arrested. Chow ordered Lee to drop the charges against Lei, but she refused, and instead helped police assemble a case against the leadership of the Wo Hop To: Chow and Chong.
In October 1993, Chow, Chong, and several others were indicted on racketeering charges. Chow had already been arrested on charges of murder for hire, drug trafficking, and illegal firearms, and Chong fled the United States a few days ahead of the racketeering indictment. Chow was later tried in two separate proceedings. The first trial was for illegal gun sales and the second was for racketeering. His first trial resulted in a conviction on February 21, 1995, two weeks after it started, for six counts of illegal firearms trafficking. Two of his co-defendants had earlier pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. A year and a half after his conviction, Chow was sentenced to more than 23 years; sentencing for the 1995 conviction had been delayed while he was undergoing his second trial. An appeal in 1998 was unsuccessful; the Ninth Circuit ruled "the evidence against Chow was so overwhelming that it is unlikely the jury would have reached any other verdict".
Chow's second trial started in March 1996 and was dismissed as a mistrial in May 1996. At the outset, the defense portrayed him as a Buddhist and practitioner of kung fu, rather than a criminal mastermind trying to consolidate organized crime in Chinatowns nationwide. The defense strategy also claimed the government's case was simply not credible, as most of the evidence was produced by criminals who were testifying in exchange for reduced sentences. Two jurors said there was "no chance of reaching a unanimous verdict" after six days of deliberation. The lead lawyer for Chow's defense, Maureen Kallins, bragged that authorities had "spent $10 million to get this guy and they couldn't get him on any of the 38 counts." Kallins was a popular choice for defendants in the Bay Area.
After Chong was captured and extradited to the United States in 2000, Chow became an informant and testified against his former boss in exchange for a reduced sentence. He was first released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May 2002, and then put into supervised release from prison in January 2003. Chow stated that one reason he turned on Chong in 2000 was because he felt betrayed after Chong had hired away Kallins, his defense attorney from the second trial. Kallins was later removed from Chong's defense at his request, as her defense of Chow in the 1996 trial relied on blaming Chong for the crimes, a potential conflict of interest.
As part of the deal to win early release in 2003, Chow testified against Chong. In addition, Chow's application for a resident visa was supported by the government. He requested a new identity and location under the witness protection but his request was denied by the prosecuting attorney; he was returned to San Francisco and was also required to wear a tracking device under the terms of his release. In addition, he was granted a monthly allowance of $2,000. Because Chow had applied for a S-5 visa but had not yet secured it, his immigration status was not permanent and he could not legally work in the United States; in 2014, more than ten years after his release, the visa application was still pending. Initially, Chow lived with his brother and his brother's girlfriend, who complained about the amount of toilet paper he used.
Chow's confinement to home ended in 2004, and his period of supervised release ended in 2005. Unemployable and afraid to leave his home, he suffered a nervous breakdown in 2004. As part of his rehabilitation, he counseled troubled youths about "the frame of the criminal mind" and began to meditate at Ocean Beach. Three days of meditation led him to an epiphany: "I change myself. I tell myself I'm not going to cross the line and commit the crime."