History of organised crime
_02.jpg)
Among the first organised crime group to emerge in Vietnam were the Bình Xuyên, which during the 1920s acted mainly as river pirates led by Dương Văn Dương,[2] before later becoming a legitimate military organization that controlled nearly the entire supply of opium of Vietnam in 1954.[3] With the arrival of Vietnamese independence in 1945 (in the North) and 1955 (in the South), organized crime activity, including protection rackets, were drastically reduced as both the Northern and Southern governments purged criminal activity in their parts of the country. In spite of this, organized crime continued to persist in both parts of Vietnam.
In the South during the 1960s, the underworld of Saigon was defined by the "Four Great Kings" period, where the city was ruled by the top four powerful mobsters who presided over much of the organized criminal activities and rackets within the city, such as the drug dens, prostitution houses, night clubs and casinos. These four gangsters were Đại Cathay, Huỳnh Tỳ, Ngô Văn Cái and Ba Thế, referred to with veneration by a Vietnamese saying "Nhất Đại – nhì Tỳ - tam Cái – tứ Thế". These venerations refer to each of the four mobsters respectively by their level of dominance, with Đại Cathay referred to as being the king among kings in the city. Following 1975 and the reunification of Vietnam, the era of the Four Great Kings came to and end. Later in the 90s, Năm Cam would come to form a dominant criminal group in Saigon, where he was known for running numerous gambling dens, hotels, and restaurants that fronted for brothels. He is said to have gone on a 15-year killing spree in Saigon in order to eliminate his rivals. As such, he is often referred to as the godfather of Vietnam.[2][4][5][6][7]
Meanwhile, in the North, organized crime continued to exist. However, it was much more hidden from the general public and the government's eyes, due to the North's more stringent control over organized criminal activity and stricter law enforcement. In spite of this, organized crime persisted. One notable example was an organization formed by Khánh Trắng, the former President of the Đồng Xuân Labor Union in Hanoi, which was the first non-state trade organization in the city. At its height, Khánh Trắng's organization had received praise from the northern government officials as a model example of an organization that should be replicated. However, underneath the guise of operating a legal labor union, Khánh Trắng started to transform the union into a type of organized crime group that extorted from the merchants in the Đồng Xuân market and created unfair policies that resulted in fines against the local merchants, and profit for Khánh.[8][9]
Another well known organized crime figure that originated from the North was Dung Hà, who was a female gangster from the city of Haiphong where she originally ran an illicit casino business, which brought her numerous followers or disciples. Other gangsters such as Hải Bánh also originated from the North, but some of them like Hải and Dung Hà later took their operations to the south in order to expand their operations and increase profit.[10][11]
In the modern era, organized crime in Vietnam is mostly concentrated in the northern regions such as in Hạ Long City and the nearby port city of Haiphong which are notorious for being hotbeds of organized crime groups that engage in activities such as smuggling, prostitution, drugs, and a myriad of other criminal activities. The Vietnamese mafia was nicknamed "the snake". Inside these organizations is a rigid hierarchy, iron discipline and total control over each member of the community established.[2]
