The Great Circle Gang and the 14K

     The first known head of the Great Circle Gang in Paraguay was Wong Ming, a violent sort!  Wong Ming initially went to Sao Paolo, Brazil to set up the South American operation.  But there he ran into trouble with the Japanese Yakuza as well as some Brazilian gangs, so he moved to Paraguay.  It was Wong Ming who sent his hit men to kill the "boss" of the competing Triad in a bloody shootout at a steam bath.  However, it apparently got him into trouble with his bosses in Hong Kong. The man that he had killed so publically was the head of a minor gang, but in fact it was a gang that paid "tribute" to the 14K Triad, an old and powerful organization out of Hong Kong that apparently had a "branch" in Paraguay.
     The Chinese criminal gangs have numerous layers that are tightly kept secrets which confuses the outsiders.  It is very difficult to determine who really is the boss!  The name Great Circle Gang applies to the "soldiers" of this particularly violent and powerful Triad.  The "soldiers" were made up of former People's Army and Red Guards.  It wasn't clear at all as to who the real boss or bosses were and if there even was a name for the organization!  The "soldiers" were most visible element and they were called the Great Circle Gang, also known as the Great Circle Boys!  Obviously, the leaders of the organization who were probably older, would not be called boys!  Whatever the case, the supposed head of the "soldiers" in Paraguay, Wong Ming got into trouble with the leadership and disappeared.  A few months later Taiwanese intelligence reported that he had resurfaced in Beijing!  A new leader of the Paraguayan Triad appeared, or at least he was supposed to be the new head.  "Johnny" Kon Yu Leung was a young, good looking, well dressed man who looked more like a successful businessman than a gangster.  He was often seen with a very attractive, fashionably dressed, mysterious woman who seem to travel about freely between Asia, South America, and the United States.
     Shortly after the supposed take over of leadership of the gang by "Johnny" Leung, it became apparent that the Great Circle Gang had partnered with an old and very powerful Triad known as the 14K.  The 14K had its roots going back to Ching Dynasty and were at one time rivals of the Green Gang which founded the Nationalist Party, the Koumintang.  The 14K, it seemed, had been in Paraguay for some time and had established a respectable front.  The El Banco Paraguayo Oriental (The Oriental Bank of Paraguay), more popularly known as "el banco chino" (the Chinese bank) or "el banco de coca" (the cocaine bank), as well as several large businesses were owned by the 14K who filled the Board of Governor's positions in the banks with Paraguayan government officials - the list read like the who's who of Paraguayan government!  Obviously, laundering illegal money was not a problem.  Millions upon millions of drug money passed through those banks!
     The 14K was one of the most powerful Hong Kong Triads, and it was soon revealed that the Paraguayan Consul in Hong Kong was the son of the 14K head in Paraguay who happened to be the President of El Banco Paraguayo Oriental, Chan Hung Choi.  Chan's entire family was in possession of Paraguayan Diplomatic Passports!  So, the connection between the 14K and the Great Circle Gang became clearer.  Apparently, the Great Circle Gang or Boys were "soldiers" of the 14K, or so it seemed.  The Great Circle Gang did all the dirty work, drug running, human smuggling, prostitution, etc., and the 14K "supervised" from a distance, never close enough to get caught.
     The Great Circle Gang's most popular mode of smuggling drugs was to put them in canned goods that were coming out of Brazil and other South American countries.  The heroin arrived from the Golden Triangle in Burma, transported on Paraguayan flag ships.  They were then prepared for shipment to the United States, sometimes by way of Europe, sometimes directly from South America.  Canned goods such as gourmet items like hearts of palms or other exotic fruits were a very popular vehicle.  After all, it would be very hard to detect narcotics that are in a sealed can!
     The Great Circle Gang apparently was under orders to expand, so their Paraguayan leader "Johnny" Leung travelled to the United States in the company of a mysterious woman who had been seen with "Johnny" in other countries.  Soon it was learned that "Johnny" together with this woman had been in Tokyo and Osaka, meeting with Japanese businessmen, no doubt with the Yakuza!  However, "Johnny" ran into some bad luck.  While he was in the U.S., Luk Pong Ki, the accountant for the Great Circle Gang was caught and brought to the U.S.  Luk Pong Ki, not being a hardened criminal, spilled the beans under pressure and told the DEA that "Jonny" Leung who was in New York at the time, was the head of Paraguayan Great Circle Gang.  "Johnny" was immediately arrested in his hotel room in New York, but amazingly, his female companion was nowhere to be found!
     The more Luk Pong Ki talked, the more it became apparent that the Great Circle Gang had spread its tentacles world wide.  There were elements of the Great Circle Gang all over the place, New York, San Francisco, just to name two cities in the U.S.  They were also established in Canada, in Vancouver and Toronto and in cities in Europe as well.  In all these cities they allied themselves with other Chinese gangs in the area.  In San Francisco, for instance, they were tied with the notorious Wah Ching, and in most places did not operate under their own name but used surrogate gangs for their purposes.
     Now, for the first time the U.S. became interested in the Great Circle Gang.  Previously, only the individual cities that had Chinese gangs like New York and San Francisco had any interest.  The DEA and FBI thought it was just a "local" problem.  Now, the interest was nationwide.