The Underworld Podcast - The White Boston Townie Who Became A Chinese Triad Boss

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

Chinatowns in the United States have never been short on organized crime syndicates, from the early days of secret society tongs to the Triads. In Boston, it was the Sky Dragon who ruled over the gambling, prostitution and drug markets. Somewhere along the way, though, a white kid from south Boston straight out of a Ben Afleck movie would find his way to the top of Boston's Triads. This is the story of White Devil John, with special guest The Wonton Don AKA Donnie Does. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Welcome to the Underworld podcast where we dive into the secret lives of transnational criminal organizations. I am your host Danny Golds and I'm here with a special guest today. What do I call you? The Wantan Don, Don

Donnie Barstall? You can call me the Wantan Don. Hey, how are you? Yeah. And today we have a pretty wild story. It's going to make sense why he's here. It's one about international expansion, about ancient codes, but mostly, mostly, it's a beautiful story of tolerance about cross-cultural fusion that's just progressive as hell, frankly. People from different countries and ethnicities just getting along.

This is a story of white devil John, the only white Massachusetts townie to rise high in the world of Chinese organized crime. And Donnie here shares a lot of similarities with John Willis, the man at the center of the story, in that he's a white Boston townie who has also found his way into insular elements of Chinese society. Yes. I mean, I don't know if I'd call myself a Boston townie, but I'm a macehole who has lived in China for most of the last 10 years. Right. So a lot of similarities there.

And the John Willis story, it's actually like nothing I've ever heard before. And I have you to thank for that because I had never. never heard it before you told me. And John Willis is, for lack of a better word, he is a macehole, a townie. You know, the kind of guy with like a chin strap beard, backwards fitted red socks hat, thick Boston accent and like wearing a hoodie, really into Hockley and likely to punch you in the face in like Cambridge or Somerville. Like a character out of a Ben Affleck movie, basically, is what I'm trying to say.

And Willis is that to a T. And when he gets started hanging out in Boston, he's a big boy, he's lifting. weights, he's doing steroids. He looks older than his 16 years. And he's able to lie his way into a job as a bouncer at a bar near Fenway. This is like in the mid-80s because Willis needs to make money. He's an orphan. His dad skipped out on the family when he was a toddler and his mom died from diabetes

when he's 15. So basically he's on his own. Yeah, I've found that like the bouncers in Boston are usually the angriest people that they're going to meet. Like people who just aren't really happy with their. their life. So they're looking to take it out on drunk people at the bars. And if you're a bouncer like near Fenway, there's, there's a lot of opportunities to do that. Yes. And some of those opportunities lead to new opportunities as we're going to see here. So Sunday night, the bar John works at,

it's referred to as Asian night by the manager. And it's full of guys with tailored, flashy suits and spiky hair. John's boss warns him about them, says that they're gangsters and not to get on the wrong side of them. One night, though, a fight breaks out, and this huge Korean guy maces a much smaller Asian, Rod Stewart-looking Chinese guy. John breaks up the fight, punches the Korean guy in the face, and takes the Chinese guy to the bathroom to help him clean up. The Chinese guy hands John a business card, and he tells him, if you ever need anything, you give me a call. Which is like, I mean, in that situation in life, if a guy hands you a business card and says, if you need anything, give me a call. Like, that's a person you want on your side. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And this guy, like, he has zero support system, you know, like he doesn't have parents in his life. And this dude kind of like, he offers him a leg up or something like that. Way out. Yeah. So John at first doesn't think much about it. You know, at this point, he's sleeping on the floor of a relative's apartment that doesn't have any heat. He's barely got any money and he's struggling to survive. But a few days later, he's so desperate. Like you said, he's got nothing. Desperate for a ride. He takes out the business card and calls the guy up. Within no time, two black BMWs filled with Asian gangsters, you know, clad in those black suits, spiky hair, tattoos, all that, they show up. John has no idea what's going on. But at this point, he has nothing to lose. The guy who rescued him isn't there, but these other guys put John in the car and tell him that soon he's going to see his friend.

They take him to a massive house nearby, and this is where he starts his journey into the underworld of the Boston Chinese triads, Chinese mafia, for lack of a better word. I mean, he lives out here. This is like one of the quintessential, I think, teenage fantasies or day dreams that like every teenage boy has where it's like you somehow break up a bar fight and the guy that you help out is a high ranking member of like the mafia. And he's like, hey guy, whatever you need.

Like I'm going to take care of you. Yeah. I mean, it would be a little bit better if it was a famous athlete or something like that. And he's like, hey, man, you can come hang out in my mansion whenever you want, something like that. But like, and then not have to go and work for the mob. But yeah, when you're young, that. probably sounds really cool to work for the mob.

It's pretty, I mean, just like, hey, if someone's going to mess with you, give me a call in the Chinese mafia, we'll take care of them. You can't get much better than that in terms of random interactions. Yeah, no, I wish I, like, was tight with the Chinese mob when I was in China. I didn't really have them to call because now the mob in China is kind of like the Communist Party. But just like the Communist Party came into China, they got rid of most organized crime there. And there's there obviously is like a fair amount of corruption. So like they are some people in the Communist Party are now the organized crime. Did you have any interactions with,

I mean, you know, you got around over there. You were in some pretty shady areas doing some shady things. I don't want to, you know, imply anything else. But did you have any interactions with criminal figures in that world or any of your friends? My friend did. I like, you know what? Like I've, I definitely saw corrupt people doing shady things, but it was nothing. There were no, like, violent crimes. But my friend who, he came to Shanghai to visit for just one day, wasn't even like a friend. It was a friend of a friend. And they were like, hey, can you show him around?

He's going to be in Shanghai. So I was like, I can't see you on Friday night, but I'll see you on Saturday. If you're looking for something to do, here are some nice places to eat. So he went to his hotel. And as he was heading to a restaurant that I told him to go. to. A lady shows up. She's like, massage. Do you like a massage? And he was like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. And she was like, okay, come with me. And they hop in a cab drive to this just random building. It was only a 10 minute drive. And he gets a massage and then gets a hand job. And right after receiving

the hand job, the Chinese mafia bursts in. I didn't even know the mafia was in Shanghai, but they burst in. They're like, we have this all on camera. If you don't pay us $20,000, we're going to the cops. So no, if you don't pay us $10,000, we're going to the cops. And he was like, no, what the fuck? Like, I don't even have any cash on me. And they're like, that's okay. We have a card reader. They had like a card risk. They could just take the 10K off his card. And he was like, no, no, no. And they brought in a Louis Vuitton bag, open the bag, and there was a gun in the bag. And I mean, like China's done a really good job. They've, like, banned guns completely.

So I was just, like, shocked that. And who knows? Maybe it was a fake gun just used to scare him. So then he was like, fuck, I got to do it. Tried to take the money off of his car. It got flagged as fraud. They made him call the bank and be like, it's not fraud or something like that. And then I think they took at least like 5K.

Damn. Yeah. And that sounds, I mean, that's, I was going to say at first, it sounded like a pretty low-level extortion thing. but the card reader, the gun in China. Yeah. That's pretty legit. They also took the card for his hotel and we're like, if you go to the cops, we know where you're staying in China.

I mean, generally, I think if a strange woman asks you to get a massage and that makes you get in a cab and takes you an event. It's so dumb. It's a, there's some red flags there. There's a lot of red flags. He had only been in China for maybe two hours and he just hops in a random lady's cab. Like, come on. I mean, that's not, were you blame? that all because you were supposed to because this isn't your fault no i wasn't i was like dude you're you're an

idiot why'd you just hop in that cab like you don't have to warn someone about that you should just know not to do yeah it's like if you really wanted a hand job i could probably tell you like a safe place to get one all right so where were we yes we were we were okay so john willis had found himself involved with the chinese mafia in the very beginning but to kind of get to the world that john's in to understand that, we have to briefly discuss a bit about Chinese history, the notorious triads and the history of Chinese immigration into America, and the Chinatown Wars of Boston that kicked off in the 80s. So a lot of background info, but we like the background info. Yeah. The triads are typically the name that comes up when you think of Chinese organized crime and with good reason. Their massive

groups spread all over the world with tens of thousands of members. They started out as secret societies in the 70th century, and they form as an act of rebellion against the Qing dynasty, who had just taken over China. The Qing dynasty were seen as illegitimate leaders. They were from the wrong province and the wrong ethnicity, so all these groups formed up to bring them down. And I'm just going to tell the story because it involves like Shaolin monks, and everyone my age who grew up in the 90s, you know, listening to early 90s,

is like obligated to tell these stories about Shaolin monks whenever they come up. I mean, it's like real intro to a Jesus song album stuff right here. Yeah. So the legend goes that in 1674, the second emperor of the dynasty reaches out to some Shaolin monks to help him fight off a challenge. They do it and they do it well, but they refuse payment and their popularity and reputation as fierce honorable warriors continues to grow after they finish a job and return home. This really concerns the emperor who sends his men to their monastery to kill them. Only five out of 130 of the monks survive. And those five swear revenge and that they'll overthrow the emperor and reestablish the previous dynasty.

each of the five starts a secret group dedicated to the goal, and they operate in the shadows against the feudal overlords. It was actually Europeans who started calling them triads because their symbol as a triangle, where the three sides represent heaven, earth, and man. And then the emcees came to live out the name. And now we have a white guy in a Bruins jersey who's just joining up with them.

Wow. Yeah. That brings it home. So every time these secret societies try to rebel over the next few centuries, they fail. And each failure, after each failure, these triads would flee the country going to Hong Kong, Indochina and North America, especially in the 19th century. By the 1900s, though, most of these groups had pretty much done away with all the politics

and were focused on the fun stuff, which is running criminal enterprises, like massage paulers, gambling paulers, the kind of things you found in Chinatown's opium dens, China towns across the U.S. at that time. Yeah. And like I know even to this day, the triad. They hold a lot of sway in Hong Kong. They're very well connected. Like a lot of business deals you try to do there, you have to go through the triads

first. So they still have a huge presence there. It's actually really interesting to see what's going to happen now with China coming in there. I mean, one of the things in these papers, I was reading these Justice Department papers about the Chinese mafia coming to the U.S. in the 80s was concerns that all these guys in Hong Kong were going to try to reestablish themselves in the U.S. and shift all their assets here because they were worried about the Chinese government coming in. This was in the late 80s.

Yes. So now, like, it's really interesting. I wonder what the scene is like there right now. Yeah, you're right. They kind of, like, Hong Kong thought China was going to come in and really try to take over, like, probably 30, 40 years ago. And it, it never happened. But now it looks like it's going to be happening faster than they, like, it's going to be,

it wasn't supposed to happen until 2047 was when they, like, when Hong Kong would, was supposed to become fully China. But because of all the protests there, China was like, you know what? We're going to speed up this process. So, yeah, I'll see what happens to the triads there. Yeah. So Chinese immigration into the U.S. really starts in the mid-19th century. As immigrants flow into work as laborers and minors, often working in atrocious conditions

and facing horrible racism. A lot of triads came in during this time as well, fleeing deteriorating situations in China. The first Tong was established in 1860 in California. The Tongues were civic organizations like the Rotary Club or a merchant organization, fraternal stuff, set up so that they could all look out for each other and stuff like that.

They were modeled after the triads and some were triad affiliated, but they were at first legitimate like mutual aid societies and they drew their membership from the railway workers and the gold miners, some of whom themselves have been triads fleeing crackdowns and famines back in China.

Of course, as the amount of Chinese immigrants continue to grow in Chinatowns formed in cities like any insular ethnic community during that time from the Italians to the Jews to the Irish, someone needed to control the vice rackets and the Tongs stepped up to do that. You know, gambling houses, prostitution, opium, there was money to be made. And again, this isn't like a strictly Chinese thing. Any ethnic community in the U.S. generally has a situation like that when there's a lot of them flowing in and they're forming their neighborhoods. Like I said, Jews, Italians, Irish

back then, like it's nothing new. So just, you know, I don't want to make it seem like the Chinese were the only one's doing this. Everyone was doing this. Um, But yeah, to reiterate, the Tongs themselves, they were kind of necessary structures because Chinese immigrants and communities were treated like shit and neglected, and someone needed to be a voice for them. The Tong wars break out in 1890s in Chinatowns across the country in Boston and San Francisco and New York as various Tongs try to seize territory control. It lasts decades before things are brought under control by a big truce in 1913, though

there were some sporadic fights in the years after, but the Tongs still maintain holds in all these Chinatowns, like you said, not just in Hong Kong. I mean, they have serious control in New York right now in in San Francisco, in Boston. A 1988 paper by the Justice Department described it like this. During and after this transition, Tong leadership retained a powerful hold on the business and politics of American Chinatowns. Today, some Tongue sponsor a complex mixture of legal and illegal activities and remain essential to the Chinese organized crime leaders because of their influence within the Chinese community. Moreover, a few Tong leaders are themselves deeply involved than criminal conspiracies.

Right before the Tong Wars broke out, the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was a deeply racist immigration policy that just completely restricted Chinese immigrants from coming in. At a 1924, they passed the National Origins Act, which again, restricted Asian immigration heavily. So Chinatowns back then, like, didn't have that many people. We're talking like a couple thousand max. Yeah. And like the Chinatown in Boston is still pretty small to this day.

it's only a few blocks. Whereas, I mean, Manhattan has probably, I mean, New York City in general has probably four Chinatowns. Like I went to a place in Brooklyn, Sunset Park, yeah, yeah. Which I didn't even know they had, like, you guys have your own, your own Chinatown. And one other thing I'll say,

the Chinatowns in the U.S., they feel a lot more like Hong Kong than they do mainland China. And I think that's just because, like, the biggest influx of Chinese immigrants were coming from Hong Kong and southern China at first. And so that's where they speak Cantonese, wherein, like, the rest of the China, they're speaking Mandarin. Yeah, it's interesting to bring that up because John eventually learns Cantonese. And I was wondering why that was the one that he, language that he picked up. You know, at some point, I think it's the 60s and 70s or 80s.

Boston does actually have the fourth largest Chinatown in the U.S. I think they're probably considering New York as one. But I always thought that was pretty interesting because I wouldn't expect that. Yeah. Robert Mook is born in 1935. His dad, George, had come to the United States at the turn of the century in the midst of all these quotas and exclusions and established himself as the unofficial mayor of Boston's Chinatown. They called him, quote, the king of the Chinese, which as far as Boston nicknames for minorities go back then was actually probably like as less racist as it gets. Yeah.

I'm sure they heard a lot worse. Even now. So George was heading up the most powerful Tongue, which was the On Leong, and Robert grew up in his shadow wanting to be a big man like his dad. He went to legit route at first, got a college degree, and then just basically went to work doing every service you could think of that, a community like that needs for being a notary to an insurance agent to real estate, just helping the community with all their paperwork. Value of service, but he wanted more. So we started to shadily kind of move around his dad's tong and run his own rackets. He joined the Chinese Freemasons group, which aren't like, you know, the real estate. freemasons, Illuminati type stuff.

This was this code. It was actually the Hong Ma, which is one of China's oldest secret societies, also known as the Vasque. They had originated in the 17th century, and honestly, I can't tell whether or not they were officially considered triads. And the more I look into the word triads,

the more it seemed to be a fluid term, sort of all-encompassing when it comes to these underground secret of Chinese societies. You know, this was one of those groups that might support charities, but also ran prostitution rings. On the Young, his dad's tongue, was the biggest group running Boston's Chinatown.

but things were starting to change. And they would change more with the arrival of Stephen Zay, the Sky Dragon, but we'll get to that. But first, you know, remember all those restrictions on Asian immigrants? In 1965, they're done away with, and the Asian immigration shoots up. Legal Chinese immigration goes from 5,000 in 1965 to 14,000 in 1966, and Chinatowns across the U.S. are just swelling. More big changes come in the 1970s and 1980s as the Vietnam War rages on, and then ends, and lots of Vietnamese refugees pouring to Chinatowns across the U.S.

What you had now was a new wave of immigrants who tended to be young, poor, unskilled, and didn't speak English, as that DOJ paper points out. But I kind of assume the other ways were similar. Like, I don't think Chinese people were coming over in the 1850s with money or speaking English. You know, so I don't, it was weird that they pointed that out. Yeah, that was why a lot of them at first just like, we're like, we're going to work on the railroads. You know, they didn't have a lot of opportunities. The difference here was that there were a lot more of them coming in at this time. And they settled into the small Chinatowns.

They strained housing and social services, and tensions also develop between the American-born Chinese and the new foreign-born immigrants. This is directly from the DOJ paper who breaks them down with two groups, what they called each other, which ABC for American-born Chinese and F-O-B for fresh off the boat. The new immigrants start forming street gangs to protect themselves against the American-born gangs, and these guys tend to be younger, tougher, and just wilder. Some of the more famous of these gangs are the Wachang in San Francisco and the ghost shadows in New York, I think we're definitely going to do an episode on at some point.

Some of these gangs, they remain independent, but some of them link up with the tongs who sort of become sponsors for them or hire them to do protection work for the dirty work more suited for the young and the reckless. The Sky Dragon comes to Boston from Hong Kong, and that name, I mean, in general. Sky Dragon? That's pretty awesome. That's incredible. Like as far as mob names go, it's like, you know, fat Tony or the Sky Dragon.

Is Shanghai's most famous gangster back in the 1920s? So this was before the communists took over. His name was Big Ear Doe. That's pretty good. Yeah. But it's not as cool as Sky Dragon. And there's a guy in San Francisco who actually wanted to do an episode on who was Shrimp Boy, which is not, again, not as cool as Skydragon.

So he comes from Hong Kong in the 1970s. He's one of these newer immigrants and he's just a bad motherfucker. He's a member of the 14K, one of the oldest triad groups out there that claims to trace its origins, back to the original Shaolin monk insurrection in the 17th century. The 14K is the second largest triad group in the world with a base in Hong Kong, and according to a different source, they have approximately 20,000 members, which is like a militia. That's an army right there.

I mean, they're a global enterprise who deals in everything from drug trafficking, human trafficking, gambling, all sorts of stuff. Another source I read, though, said that the whole ancient legend lore is kind of made up and that they actually formed as an anti-communist group in 1945 by Chinese. nationalist. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea, but it is cool. Like, I lived in China and had no idea that, like, a lot of people think the triads are connected to the Shal and monks.

But that's a cool connection. It makes sense. I mean, anything with Shal and Monks is automatically. Yes. And we have Wutang thing for that. Like, without them, there'd be a lot less respect, I think, for Shal and monks in general. Yes. I know, like, now in Shalon, there's a couple monks who have mastered the iron balls technique

or something. and like, have you ever seen a vid that you can probably find online where someone is just like I think I have punched in the nuts over and over again? I don't like to think about it a lot. And he shows zero pain, like zero emotion. I don't know what like ancient discipline that comes as a form of or like what that means. Yeah. I mean, it's it's a cool party trick.

Yeah. It seems like a lot of work for a party trick, to be honest with you. But I guess like, you know, your balls are your biggest weakness in a fight. And if you just can learn to like not feel pain. in your balls, it could help you. Oh, you're indestructible. Yeah. Which is why they're so good at fighting people and why the emperor back then had to go after

them. Yes. So before the Sky Dragon had come to town, Boston Chinatown was relatively small. Like I said, maybe 5,000 people. With a new immigration, it just grows rapidly. The Sky Dragon starts up a gang with the other young foreign-born Asians who feel looked down upon by the American-born ones running the tongs. He calls it the Ping-ong, which is what they call the area where Chinese immigrants first

settled in Boston in the 1870s. and they quickly get sponsorship from the On Leong Tong. Remember, Mug's Dagg T's Tong who kind of ran shit. Today's go-to-first move once he gets the sponsorship is extorting the prostitutes and the pimps in Chinatown in the Chinatown brothels, though he was first arrested for a home invasion in 1974 in Brookline, of all places, which is like what? A really nice suburb, yeah? Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go!

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Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every. story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Very nice. Yeah. But Sey Soon runs afoul of the elders when he kidnaps the child of a restaurant owner and they kick him out. He decides to join up with Robert Mook's guy and his crew, the Hong Ma, and they form an alliance. Soon the only on have no choice put the seed power to the new kingmakers, Mook the son and the Sky Dragon. Mook, who some called the original Chinese godfather of Boston, it's kind of a merchant gangster, he teach it, say, how to operate in Boston. And Mook is like the type to keep his hands

clean, you know, he deals with the money laundering and the financing. Kind of a more slick guy, not like a street dog. He had a pencil-thin mustache. He dressed in silk shirts and white sandals, and he sported a giant jade ring. So, you know, kind of a cool-looking guy from the pictures that I've seen. He ran his empire out of his four-sees restaurant and taught, say, everything he knows. The restaurant was like this well-known, famous after-hour spot where you could find Italian mafia guys at one table, celebrities at another, athletes and politicians. And like, still to this day, Chinatown and Boston is the late night spot. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah. So when a lot of other bars stop serving beer,

the rumor is you can go to Chinatown and ask for cold tea and then they'll bring you out beers when they aren't supposed to be saloom booze. So complete, like, out of nowhere, when I was traveling in Sudan and like, like 12 years ago, I was in cartoon. and alcohol is illegal there. But the rumor was that if you went to a Chinese restaurant and asked for tea in a teapot, you could get booze. So maybe that's an international Chinese restaurant, illegal booze thing.

I think so. So Mook at that time was sitting on the boards of places like the YMCA in various schools. He was a real pillar of the community. He donated to politicians, had contacted City Hall, and he lived in the nice suburb of Brookline. He was even responsible for booking all Chinese entertainment that came to Boston, which is a solid racket.

that apparently had been divided up among various organized crime figures in different cities across the U.S. at a meeting in Hong Kong. From this Justice Department paper in 1988, this is, quote, current agreements among North American Chinese leaders regarding the handling of entertainers

date back to a January 1983 meeting at the New World Hotel in Hong Kong. Later dubbed the Hong Kong summit, this meeting allegedly produced an agreement on important matters of mutual interest, including the entertainment business. Since then, meanings among principles to work out specific arrangements have been common.

And it kind of goes on to list, you know, the Sky Dragon, a bunch of other gangsters in New York and Toronto and San Francisco, who kind of controlled the different rackets in the U.S. All these gangs were interconnected across the U.S., even though they had their own headquarters. The Sky Dragon opens up his own place, which is called the Kung Fu Restaurant, right next to the Four Seasons. Mook didn't play a direct role in the real gangster shit,

according to law enforcement, but he helped the Sky Dragon with money laundering, financing, and connections. and Say was set to have 200 men on a side, and Boston at this point had the fourth largest Chinese community in the U.S. and a fast-growing Vietnamese community. By the time of the 1980s in full swing, Zay is ruling over Chinatown

has earned his nickname, Sky Dragon. He is the Sky Dragon. Prostitution, loan sharking, extortion, drugs, gambling halls, he's raking it in. He's said to be brutal but fair, and he keeps things under control from his home in Braintree, which is where he lived. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So there wasn't even that much of violence because he was fully in control of everything. In 1984, he gets jailed for refusing to testify at a presidential commission on Asian mafias where he was going to be asked about the 1983 UDN. meeting with the other triads in Hong Kong. And this is like a crazy thing they used to do.

They used to have, I mean, they did it for the Italian mafia back, you know, I think in the 60s. They did it for the Russian mob in the 90s. And it just sounds crazy to me, these giant presidential commissions on organized crime. And it kind of sounds fun too and like a lot less boring than what's normally on C-SPAN. Oh, yeah.

I would watch hours of that. If you could just like watch them like being like, this is what we know about Yeah. Yeah, but calling these guys up there to talk about what they know, like the actual gangsters. Yeah. I mean, feds, if you're out there right now, like I will do the work. Just like go to the Patreon, hook it up. Like I'm game.

Yeah. I would do the. I would watch that. Say it ends up doing 16 months for refusing to testify, which is, you know, a real fucking stand up guy, this guy, dragon. He just like wants no part. they don't make them like they used to. Does not snitch.

While he's away, though, the upstart Vietnamese gangs, they're trying to come into Pingong territory. Remember, post-Vietnamese war, lots of Vietnamese immigrants starting their own thing. Many of them settled in the Ben Affleck movie set, neighborhood known as Dorchester, which is a rough part of South Boston. Yeah, and still to this day,

it has a huge Vietnamese population. Like, the former Boston mayor was Mayor Menino, And for some reason, all the Vietnamese there loved him. Like I was at the Dorchester Day Parade once, and there was just a bunch of Vietnamese there. And he was walking by and they were like, Manino, Manino. They just, like, love the guy.

I'm sure he helped the community somehow. They sound like they became a sort of powerful community, both politically and criminally, as we'll see here. So the Vietnamese, you know, the new ethnic group in a rough area. And again, we're talking about, when we talk about gangster stuff, I don't want to be clear, we're talking about a very small minority of people.

We're not talking about the overall population. population and also every ethnic group has this kind of shit. So let's just get that out of the way. So they're, you know, the Vietnamese, the new ethnic group, they're in a rough area, and they're also a minority of a minority. You know what I mean? Like the Chinese aren't going to look out for them. Yes.

Yeah. I guess like similar how like Protestants aren't going to look after the Catholics when they come. So it's like, and also the Chinese aren't going to look out for the Vietnamese. Right. It's actually very similar to how MS-13 formed, right? MS-13 Salvadorans who fled El Salvador in the Civil War, you know, joined these kind of street crews, which became these big gangs because they needed protection.

They were in Mexican neighbors. They needed protection from they already established Mexican gangs from black gangs. They just need someone to look out for them. So that's what happens with the Vietnamese. And as we know, and we saw what happened with MS-13, we saw how crazy they got. So you can kind of see the same thing happening to the Vietnamese. Violence just starts to increase. the Boston police are caught somewhat unaware.

You know, Chinatown and crime weren't exactly a new thing, but law enforcement mainly left them alone, right? They live and let live because the skydiving and kept the violence down. They didn't need to bust the gambling halls and the massage parlors. But then there's an uptick. Sayre returns after 16 months in jail

and there's a war starting to brew. By that point, Sad started bringing in heroin from the Golden Triangle, which is an area where Thailand and Lao and Vietnam meet that was a major opium-producing region. This became a popular thing to do for Asian gangsters after the French connection was dismantled in the 1970s, which had brought in heroin from Turkey.

Zaid brought his in and smuggled and frozen fish and by saturating important rugs, which is a pretty unique way I think of bringing it in. The DEA said the percent of heroin originating in Southeast Asia went from 3% in 1982 to 40% in 1986, which is completely insane. And Hong Kong became a major transitment point because the island had been having an ongoing triad renaissance

that started in the 1960s, kind of like you mentioned. Yeah. And the feds, of course, we're growing more interested, Skydragons being threatened by the Vietnamese, and, you know, the walls are kind of closing in. And this is when shit just starts going a haywire in Boston's Chinatown. And in Chinatowns across the U.S.

as power struggles break out. From 1988 to 1992, there were 24 murders in Boston's Chinatown, which again, that's a lot for a small community, even just for Boston in general. Like, it's not a town where they has a really high murdering. A New York Times article in 1991 describes it like this. The change of criminal activity in Boston's Chinatown is similar to the changes that have taken place in Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver, said Colin Chin, Chin, Chin, analyst, a senior research analyst for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency.

This new group of Chinese criminals has nothing to do with the traditional Chinese criminal organization in Chinatown, Triads, Tongues, and Street gangs, he said. The new groups are involved in heroin smuggling, prostitution, and the smuggling of Chinese aliens into the United States, he added. Because they lack ties to the traditional organizations, they have no loyalties and are much more Ruthless, said Mr. Chin, the author of Chinese subculture and criminality, non-traditional crime groups in America, which sounds like a fantastic read. Yeah, I'd read it. So there's just all these wild stories from this time, like one of them, a bunch of young Vietnamese gangsters that are set to be a roving hit squad or pulled over in a car in Boston

and arrested with submachine guns. A later New York Times article mentions how in six weeks nine businessmen in Boston suffered home invasions from gangs of young Asians armed with automatic weapons and machetes. They were tied up, their families beaten and robbed of cash and jewelry. Nationwide, these young gangs of usually Chinese origin Vietnamese, teenagers, early 20s, were just running wild because of a breakdown of the gang structure. And Peter Kwong, a professor, spent time with the gangs and said they were harder to track, more mobile, and were often targeting Chinese restaurant and jewelry shop owners who worked in cash. So they wouldn't target white-owned restaurants?

So they only targeted other Asians. And that's how a lot of these, these, gangs work any ethnicity when they start the gangs up they target their own people and it's a because one it'll cause less of an uproar but also a lot of these victims are typically not willing to go to the police oh okay plus they deal in cash which in a lot of other businesses don't you know yeah um so these guys it was a big cash business enterprise especially with chinese immigrants or these like american born chinese and they were just like walking targets they were supposed to have protection they didn't and like when they're probably a lot of these people are new to the country and they're like, if I attack some of these more established places,

you know, I like then the FBI and the cops are going to just start like solely focusing on us, like on the Asian community. Draw more attention, all that sort of stuff. So also in 1989, our friend the Sky Dragon unfortunately has to flee to Hong Kong to avoid some sort of gambling charge he was being faced with. He's there allegedly, I mean, this is what he tells people. He's there to look after his beansprout business, which like is a solid gangster excuse, like very original.

A bean sprout. Bean sprout business. Is there money in bean sprouts? Do you know anything? I don't know. I mean, does the U.S. import bean sprouts from Hong Kong? I don't think so. I think we probably grow our own beans sprouts.

Maybe Hong Kong has a lot of beans sprouts. Hong Kong doesn't have a lot of land to farm. So I don't like, there's not a lot of farmland in Hong Kong. Maybe that was the distribution network. And maybe he was making up. Who knows? Yeah. His second in command, though, after he flees, is killed in his Arlington Chinese restaurant and

Revenge has never dealt out, so that kind of gives a signal for the other gangs to move in. Yeah. It's open season. Open season. And according to the Boston Globe, for years, the Vietnamese gangs, many of them from other states were robbing the gambling dens and trying to assert control themselves. One of these gangs was called the Vietching, and the only reason I mentioned them is because one of their signatures was pierced nipples, which, you know, I thought was interesting for

a gang to have that. I don't know if, like, when they saw each other in the street, they would lift up a shirt or how that worked, but it was new. It was new. That's new to me. Yeah, that's weird. I had a friend in college who pierced his nipple in high school, and he was very ashamed of that. And then...

These guys were proud. Yeah, these guys were proud. It was, you know, like getting a 13 tattooed on your forehead instead of that, they got their nables pierced. All right. Not the first thing I'd pierce, but to each their own. All the discipline that was there that the tribes were famously known for, it disappears when the Sky Dragon does. He had kept the peace for basically a decade. And all this sets up one of the most infamous nights in Boston crime history, the Chinatown massacre.

On January 12th, 1991, seven men were in a mahjong parlor in Chinatown gambling and drinking away the night. Have you ever played mahjong? Because I have no idea how. Yeah, so mahjong parlors are still very popular in China to this day. And every once in a while, like gambling is officially illegal in China. But every once in a while, you'll see an article in the news. And it's like Mahjong parlor busted for illegal gambling. And most of the people playing it are like 70 to 80.

So it's funny. You see all these senior citizens being let out of the Mahjong parlor in cuffs. Well, these guys did not get let out in cuffs. They were, according to a Boston magazine article from 2006, there was a man who has toothless wa. It was buzzed into the pallor. He left and came back with two other men. Six of the seven men who were in the poller were shot in the head, execution style. One somehow survived being shot in the head and his cries alerted neighbors who called an ambulance in the

police. The manager who was known as wrinkled skin man, another, you know, great, great nickname. Wrinkled skin and toothless, dudeless wa and wrinkled skin man, had been the seventh person there. He claims he was able to run away when the shooting started. So, I mean, just solid mob nicknames all around, but very, I mean, five dead in one night anywhere. He's like, for a mafia war is insane. That's like Chicago massacre style. So things had been out of control before, but this is like a whole new level. And everyone is trying to piece together what happened. Some say was over a drunken argument. Some say the shooters were moving against the Sky Dragon, since it was still a Pong-controlled Pollard. But it turns out they were most likely the Skydragans men who did the killing,

not the dying. In 1988, there's a gangster named Dai Kion in Boston. He's trying to punk when to say his guys out of some money. And it turns out this new guy is affiliated with a gang in San Francisco that's trying to take over the entire Asian organized crime racket in the U.S. And they're called a whole earth society. It's a triad group, they've got big plans, and the legendary shrimp boy of the San Francisco Bay Area, who I mentioned earlier, was involved. And like I said, we're definitely going to be doing an episode on him just because of the nickname alone.

So this guy's pissed about some deal gone bad, and he wants a bunch of money to pay him off, and he ends up in a negotiation with the Sky Dragon. The negotiation does not go smoothly, and Say tells his men to shoot the crap out of die. They oblige, they shoot up his car with automatic weapons, but he survives. He runs off the New York City and tries to recruit gang members to go to Boston

and take out saying his people. And as it turns out, one of the men who was killed at the polar was this guy, Day Kiyom. So this is the world that are a fucking walking, dunking donuts commercial, John Willis, somehow finds himself intertwined in. So to rehash, he's an orphan, he's swole, he's a bouncer, the bar he got a job in, had Asian gangster nights on Sunday, spiky hair, tailored suits, hot women, boss tells him they're gangsters, fight breaks out, small Chinese rod store-looking guy gets maced by a big Korean guy, Willis saves that guy, he's broke.

calls the guy who told him to give him a call whenever he needs help, and that's where we are right now. A bunch of younger gangsters show up in BMWs. They bundle him in a car. They take him to a house. This is, I think, in 86 or 87. 1986, 1986, 1987. So it's when the wars are really just kicking off.

The guy John saves goes by Woping Joe, and he's a decently high-level guy in the Pingong, stays gang. The house is like their kind of gangster hideout. There's a bunch of young gangsters, some families, aunties, and grandmas cooking food, and they feed him and he stays there, and this is a quote from John himself,

the many rubs inside overflowed like an Asian gangster frat full of young tufts and their girlfriends. I see all these guys with different tattoos, crazy haircuts, guns, all kinds of shit. And I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? Yeah, good question. Because I mean, Boston back then, it was just very segregated.

And so it was just like, you know, if you were Chinese, you'd only hang out with Chinese people. If you were Italian, you would only hang out with other Italians. and if you were if you were irish you'd be in south boston with all the irish so just like he was this is probably his first time just surrounded by people that aren't the same exact it's same exact type of person as himself and they happen to be gangsters but that's kind of the whole thing why this is so crazy right boston was like you know probably still is like a very racist city i mean this is the time i think in the in the mid 80s was when mark walberg gets arrested for being the crap at a

Vietnamese immigrants and yelling slurs at him yeah in dorchester yeah and this is i mean for a big Irish guy to be welcomed this community for him to get along with them is pretty uh it's it's pretty like unheard of yeah i mean this story shocked me but i mean first he needs to gain their trust which is what we'll be talking about next yeah and that's what's going to happen so the Asian gangsters despite John being like this big Irish Catholic south Boston noma flogging molly type of guy they welcome him they even take him out shopping for new clothes like the tailored flashy black suits that they wear in what I imagine is just like an amazing montage makeover scene yeah I mean this whole thing it would make a great movie.

I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been made into a movie. They're trying to, but we'll get to that. So this is, you know, it's insane. They're extremely insular gangsters

and an extremely insular culture. So for them to welcome a guy like John, it is unheard of. And it's essentially a secret world he's being given access to where no one like him has ever gone before. It's basically like, it's one of those unlikely animal friendships

except in human form. Yes. I think it's like a llama and a goat. And they're all just hanging out together. Yeah. Yeah, they're all boys. So the gangsters, they start giving John some chores, some duties, that kind of stuff, maybe use him as an enforcer for a bit since he's way bigger than everyone else.

I mean, he's like 6-2-250, so not just bigger than, you know, Vietnamese immigrants, but bigger than everyone. Yeah. He's a big boy. But the guys in Boston, they want John to learn a bit more. They're showing him the ropes and training him and teaching him, but they decide to send him to New York City to learn to apprentice, basically. Remember, all these gangs were interconnected from Boston to New York to San Francisco,

and they all had allies in different cities and enemies. When they sent him to New York, he lives in an apartment on Canal Street with a bunch of other Chinese gangster recruits. So it's like, you know, those model apartments in Soho or it's like eight, 19-year-old Russian and Brazilian women? Yes. This is like that, except with Asian gangsters. And one giant Irish Catholic.

Yeah, one giant Irish Catholic guy who probably stands out of it. So Canal Street, for those that you don't know, it's like the main thoroughfare in Chinatown in New York. It's full of little shops and market stalls. And in high school, it's like where me and my friends would go to buy fake Mavada watches and brass knuckles. Yeah. It's kind of like in Shanghai, they have this place called the fake market. It's where you go and you can get like a fake version of whatever brand you want.

And Canal Street sort of has that. Yeah. Yeah. And even now, you see Taurus going there to buy like fake designer handbags. So John starts going to the karaoke bars with these guys hanging out. But the other apprentices, they kind of make fun of him a bit. They refuse to speak to him. They refuse to speak to him.

In English, they laugh when he fucks up with chopsticks. So he gets, like, really dedicated. He sets his mind towards learning everything about Asian culture. I've been there. I've been laughed at for using chopsticks strongly. Yeah. Actually, I'm a lefty. One time I was just using chopsticks with my left hand.

And there's not a lot of lefties in China, believe it or not. They kind of just force people to use their right hand. And I had, like, a lady walk out to me, ripped the chopsticks out of my hand and put them in my right hand. I just had to, like, spend the rest of the meal eating awkwardly with my right hand. But yeah, that's the kind of world that he's in, except they're all gangsters. Yeah. So he takes to learning the language. He's listening to Chinese songs, watching Chinese TV, making flashcards on his own, and he studies them while the other gangsters are sleeping.

He rarely... And he's learning Cantonese, which we should add. There's like, there's a lot of languages in China. Mandarin is the largest one. But Cantonese is what they speak in the south. And that is where most of the Chinese immigrants were from in U.S. at that time. And that's a harder language to learn. Mandarin has four tones. Cantonese has nine tones. And when I say tone, it means, say if there's a word, ma. If you say it like, ma, ma, ma, it means three different things.

And then in Cantonese, I don't even know how there can be nine tones, but you can have one word. And if you say like, if you say like Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, and if you just say it a little differently, it means something completely different. And he, he's learning it. You know, before long, he's hitting on women in Canaanese. Later, he learns Vietnamese in a language called Tosanis. Yeah, I've never heard of it. You know, he's at the karaoke bars.

He's hanging with the guys. And he's soon accepted as one of their own. He learned the language. He showed respect. He did the dirty work. I mean, it helps that he's a huge hulking presence who isn't scared of a toss. And is basically working as an enforcer for gambling, dance at extortion. distortion plots, but, you know, he's, he's in with these guys. Yeah. And that works, even if it's,

if you're not in crime. If you take the effort to learn someone's language, they're going to think way more highly of you. For sure. And but also, like, what's that? I think it's a Chappelle, bit or like a Chris Rock bit where he's like, if you see a one white guy with a bunch of black eyes, like, be scared of that guy. Because whatever he did to earn their respect, like, this is like that, except with, like Chinese gangsters. So he earns his nickname around then, which actually translates to white ghost, but somehow with the media and law enforcement becomes a white devil, which, you know, does sound cooler than white ghost. Yes.

Yeah. I think like Guiloh is a term that they use maybe in Hong Kong to refer to white people. And it's almost like a slur towards white people, but I think it means white devil. In a first person article that he wrote for OZY, that website of all places, he recalls the first time he got shot at when they went to rob a sweatshop owner in Midtown and a bullet whiz past his head right when him and the other goons entered and he bolted for the door and swore he would never be caught off guard again. So eventually the gangsters teach him to use a gun, and he starts robbing check-cashing joints

and gambling dens for two brothers, Peter and Jackie Lau, who were allies of the Pingong. This is late 80s and early 90s in New York City, so remember it's just fucking wild. There's like five times as many murders as there are now. He's robbing and running around Chinatown. He's in midtown sweatshops. Chinese businesses were all done in cash. They didn't go to the police, which isn't abnormal for these little ethnic enclaves. But it means you either need protection or you're a target.

and whoever John went up against either had his protection or they were a target. In 1990, he gets called back to Boston, having earned a ton of respect already in Chinatown. He's ready for the big leagues now. Before he leaves, he's taken to a Buddhist temple by one of the Lao brothers and blessed. By now, you know, he's fluent. He's great with the chopsticks. He also learned all the culture about saving face, about patience, about showing respect for elders. Like, he's fully in it.

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Go to cabotaUSA.com flashed disclaimers for full disclaimers. Today had already fled to Hong Kong, and the new gangster in charge was named Bai Ming, who was a Vietnamese-born Chinese guy. Things are heating up in the Chinatown Wars. with Zagon and Ming faces like just an onslaught of attacks. Malatavs are thrown at his home, his car gets burned down, John gets called up to be his bodyguard and he shadows him,

studying the business and he got a new nickname, Dragon Boy. Better than White Devil. Better than White Devil, not as good as Skydragon. No. So he's like, you know, he's Christopher Malthasante to his Tony at this point. The Pingon in Chinatown in Chinatown had kind of been hit hard by arrests and murders and people fleeing. So Ming is essentially the top dog

and Willis is almost like his assistant or second in command. So he's like damn near the top of the biggest Chinese gangster in Boston. And as for the Chinatown massacre, which happens when he's there, he's told it was six members of a San Francisco triad group that were shot. Meanwhile, the war just rages on in Chinatown. A top guy is assassinated with John standing right there. The gun kind of jams when it's aimed at him. And later a sniper on a roof is apprehended at a wedding where he's with Ming.

So John is kind of losing it a bit at this point. He's thinking he's protected by karma. you know, he has all those Chinese character tattoos, which I think most people you can make fun of that, most white guys that have that. But for him, I like, you know,

yeah, he can kind of talk to talk. Yeah, he's got a dragon. He's got a tattoo. He probably knows exactly what it means. Yeah. Whereas most of the time you see someone of a Chinese tattoo, they have no idea what it means.

He gets a pass. And he kind of described some of the work he was doomed in that OZY article he wrote. You know, we had radios just like the police. We had different protocols. You worked from a certain time to a certain time. And then other guys would show up and it was almost like punching a clock. This is your job today.

You stay in the parking lot, park the cars. If you have a problem with the guys from New York, you're watching for New York plates. So this guy is now fully involved with the Chinese to the point where he's actually, you know, it's a problem with some of his Southie boys, who I assure you were named like Sully and Donnie and Murph. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. And, you know, Kevo, they don't like his new style or his flash. He actually talks about how he'd married a Vietnamese woman and had a daughter with her. And his Dorchester people, they look down on him for that. Yeah. And the crazy thing, though, is that even if he was hanging out with all Italians, they would probably have a problem with that too.

Right. So you can only imagine. Right. He's hanging out with all agents. So one incident, a woman at one of his local bars who's no doubt playing Kino and smoking new porch to the filter. Tanya. Yeah. Yeah. Calls him a gook lover, which for those of you don't know, people know what that means. It's a derogatory term for Vietnamese. So John makes his choice and he starts kind of taking charge of it. I mean, you know, the guy rises up in the the Chinese mafia as a white guy, he's got charisma. After a fellow gang member is beaten and sent to the hospital, John is the one who initiates the payback. By the mid-90s, though, things are kind of falling apart for the pingon. It actually completely shuts down in 1994 when Say gets pinched to Hong Kong and a dozen others are arrested in Boston. One part of the indictment detailed $500 other bribes every week that were handed out in Chinese takeout cardins to a municipal judge

who agreed to tip off the gangsters about any search warrants being issued against them. The clerk got tipped off and turned informants, and apparently he resigned two weeks. before the arrest complaining of a stomach problems. They also had multiple detectives on their payroll, bee cops, all sorts of stuff like that. Like these guys were, they were running a tight ship. John is operating somewhat independently now. He gets sent away for an extortion charge,

gets out, gets sent away again in 2000 for dealing heroin. And while in prison, he starts connecting with dealers and has some forays into selling weed and Coke. His Chinatown pals at that point, you know, they're out of that game, and they're warning him about getting involved in the drug market. They know it brings heat. But it also brings like a ton of money.

money and that's irresistible to a lot of people. And at some point, John gets linked up with some oxy dealers in Florida. So for those of you don't know. Fucking Florida. Yeah. I feel like that's where like all the oxy comes from. Yeah, dude, it was the pill mill. I mean, in 2000s, in the 2000s and in early 2010, like there was just no loss there.

I mean, people were doctor shopping like crazy. And for those of you don't know, Massachusetts had a huge opioid problem. I don't know. Stang it still does. Yes, it's huge. And like it started in the city, but now it's leaked out into the burbs as well. all over. I mean, in all the working class towns, Lowell, Worcester. The nice berbs as well. Like some of the, you know, historically fanciest suburbs around Boston,

they're having like four to five kids die per grade from an oxy overdose. Cape Cod, man. Even like lobster men, where we were like getting, there was a big thing with them getting hooked. Yeah. So. Parenthood USA, Cape Cod. That was a documentary. Yeah. Yeah. So John, you know, John's a smart guy. He knows there's a huge market. So he stays away from his Chinatown friends with. and he goes back to Sully and Murph and Connor, and they all set up shop in Florida, which Pell Mill Capital of America,

and just start doctor shopping. Lots of aspiring young dealers and addicts used to make the trip back then to the strip mall doctors of Florida, fill up every prescription they could, multiple fillups for different prescriptions, make their way back to Appalachia or other Rust Belt towns. John and his guys buy a mansion in South Florida, they would buy up pills from their contacts,

then ship them up to Massachusetts and multivitamin bottles. The market wasn't even crazy. I mean, I think they were getting pills for $9 and charging 15 for them once they got up there. But we're talking like tens of thousands of pills. They were making five trips a week. So the money adds up. And you know who these friends were? Were these his friends from Southie or were these his Chinatown friends? These were like his white Irish Irish friends. Okay. Yeah. He teamed up with them. Like he left the kind of China down guys went off and did this independently. And he left Chinatown because the heat got too much and a lot of those guys

ended up going to jail. I think the gang had kind of fallen apart. He kind of broke off independently a bit. Yeah. You know, it wasn't like there was any falling out. Things just kind of changed. Things got shut down. Skydragon was gone. All his other guys were gone or arrested. So he kind of went off on his own.

He wasn't a dummy, you know? Yeah. And the way he was operating, too. He had tons of burner phones, all sorts of careful about surveillance. But they were flashy. They had Benley's speedboats. They bought a nightclub and they got a little stupid. So ironically, they actually...

They were by a nightclub. Yeah. They didn't get busted for any real mistakes, kind of. John was roped into another ongoing investigation about Asian organized crime. even though he was doing this independently because, you know, he had shown up in Chinatown in a Hummer and given a bag of weed to somebody, like a pretty big bag. I don't even think he was dealing weed.

But, yeah, he was still close to this Chinatown guys, but they were monitoring that guy for a different reason. Yeah. And they decided to put eyes on this guy who they see with a Hummer in Chinatown, who's a huge Boston guy. Because if you're a cop who is keeping close eyes on Chinatown, you see this giant white Irish guy hanging out there all the time? And a Hummer, man.

That's going to be, you're going to be like, What is his deal? Yeah, alarms are set off. Yeah. And my hunch is that... Even if he was just hanging out because he now was just, he was friends with these people.

It's like, no, there's got to be some ulterior motive or something. My hunch is also that they went after him as a way of hoping he would flip and indict some of the bigger Asian organized crime guys there, but he didn't.

He kind of claims that he knew that he was fucked a few weeks before his big arrest because he got arrested in South Carolina on a pill mill trip with a ton of cash on him and no license and he was let go. How are you going to just like,

when you are committing, so many crimes, how are you going to drive without a license? People get busted for the dumbest shit. I mean, there's a kid when I was in college who was selling, like, he was bringing Coke up from Texas and selling like large amounts, well, large amounts for a college kid. Yeah. And he got busted like one of the last days of the semester because he got pulled over and there was like paraphernalia on his car seat.

And then they went after him. They go to his room. They find like, you know, like hundreds of grand. And people get busted for the dumbish. should they get careless. They start thinking they're invincible. That sounds like what happened to him. Yes.

It's a common, common theme. So he played. Yeah, because he had gotten so lucky in the past. You were saying someone tried to shoot him in the face and the gun jammed and he probably just thought. Yeah.

He was a big believer in karma and that stuff and he thought that that karma was on his side. So he gets sentenced to 2013. He pleads guilty to a bunch of charges related to running an oxycodone ring. The feds alleged he made $4 million. John told people it was 10 times as much. the supervisor and FBI agent Scott O'Donnell told NPR he had never seen a criminal like John before and I also want to stress there is a movie in the works

it's this guy Bob Halloran who a lot of this information is based off of he wrote a book called I believe White Devil John there's also a great Rolling Stone article about him I think in 2015 and the Boston Globe and Boston Magazine just did a ton of really good articles about John and that's a lot of the sources here if you sign up for the Patreon we have a source list and a script what we talk about you know these guys did the hard work of doing this, and I just kind of read all their fantastic work and put it together. Yeah.

And yeah, he's serving his time now. He's serving his time. 20 years he got. And did he have a Vietnamese wife? He had a Vietnamese wife and a Vietnamese child. All right. I wonder what they're up to now. They tried to put charges on her.

And that's another reason why he pled guilty because they tried to wrap her up in some of the investigations. So our buddy of the Skydragon, though, who was wrapped up in that big. ping on bus in 1994 and later convicted of a few charges, including ordering underlings to kill two people in 1988, even though they failed. I couldn't find any details on where he is now, though he was somehow released in 2007. And John claims that they met in 2010. And he had never met, say, before, I don't think. And they had met up in 2010 and said I had wanted to pay his respects to him. Oh, okay. Cool. So yeah, that is the story of the white devil, John Willis, who became

a high-ranking white guy in the Chinese mafia. Probably the only person ever, the only white person ever to rise in the ranks of the triads in the Chinese mafia. I think so. Yeah. I can't, I can't think of any.

I know I spent a lot of time in China. I never got that well connected over there. Are you inspired right now? I'm inspired. Don't think, I think I kind of missed my window to get involved in organized crime. But, I mean,

I did join a Chinese football team. I got fairly well connected with them. Yeah, tell us, I mean, tell us what, where they, tell everyone where they can see your work and like, uh, I have a YouTube page called, uh, the wanton Don, and then a second one called Donnie does on YouTube. And yeah, most of the videos pertain to my adventures in China and then, as well as some other countries in Asia and around the world. Yeah, and that Chinese documentary, I mean, about the football team is actually really good. Yeah. And you did play.

I did play. For real. Yeah. Like it wasn't a joke. Yes. And when I say football, I'm not talking about soccer. I'm talking about American football. They actually have a league out in China.

And obviously, I played in high school, but I was never talented enough to play in college or beyond. So when I was like 29, or no, when I was 30, I went back and I joined the league in China and was able to play. And then you also have a, was it Stefan Marbury? Who did you have beef with? Marbury. Marbury.

Yeah. Oh, my big Shanghai Sharks. fan. Yeah. And I think a running, I think a running theme was you just beefing with Marbury, who, uh, all you Knicks fans will remember. Yeah. I guess Marbury is kind of an interesting character because, you know, he came from Brooklyn out, like once his career fizzled out in the U.S. He went out to China to play. And he became very well connected in China. Like, he's like almost the LeBron James of China. And they built a statue form outside of the Beijing. at basketball arena. So I guess he's like someone who was able to get very high up and

in the Chinese power structure. He's the white devil John of basketball. Yeah. You could say that. I don't think he would appreciate being called that. But yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate having you here and bringing your insight. Yes. When does John get out of prison? Do you have any idea? 20 years 2013. I think with feds usually you do around 85% of your time at a minimum. Yeah. He's got probably another, I don't even know,

five, six, seven years. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, he probably did a lot of horrible things in his life, but you have to appreciate the fact that he really took the time and vested himself in Chinese culture. Tolerance, man. Like, this is, people think I was kidding, man.

This is a progressive story. Yeah. People from all backgrounds getting along to kill other people and take their money. And I've met a lot of foreigners who have actually lived in China for 10 years and probably speak 10 words of Chinese. So you can just coast by not get involved in the culture. But if you get involved and take the time to learn the culture, you'll go a lot further, just like White Devil John did. The secret to learning a foreign language isn't actually like duolingo or watching movies in it.

It's getting involved in organized crime elements that only speak that language. Yes. Yeah. Or finding a Chinese girlfriend or a Vietnamese girl. bringing me as a girlfriend. Yeah, that helps, if he knew me his wife, that helps too. Yep.

Thanks again for tuning into the Underworld podcast. I just want to thank some of our patrons who have hit the, I think we call it the co-defendant tier, Haley, Prym, Dan Rosen, Jared Levy, Nasser Jabber of the Migrant Kitchen, and Josh Gold. So thanks so much for contributing and your support. Patreon.com slash the Underworld podcast

so we can keep making this. I also want to think, again, our audio producer, Dale Isinger, who tirelessly removes all my mistakes that are constant that you don't hear because he's so good at editing. And yeah, until next time, peace. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no.

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