Ghost Shadows
Founded | 1971 |
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Founding location | New York City |
Years active | 1970s–1990s |
Territory | New York City, Houston Texas, Providence, Rhode Island |
Ethnicity | Cantonese and Taishanese |
Criminal activities | Racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, assault, murder, armed robbery and kidnapping |
Allies | On Leong Tong, Big Circle Gang, Tiny Rascal Gang |
Rivals | Flying Dragons |
The Ghost Shadows or GSS (traditional Chinese: 鬼影幫; simplified Chinese: 鬼影帮; Jyutping: gwai2 jing2 bong1) was a Chinese American street gang that was prominent in New York City's Chinatown from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. Formed in 1971 by immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong, the gang is affiliated with the On Leong Tong. They adopted the colors black and white as their clothing to match the name of the set. Throughout the 1980s, the gang was often engaged in bloody turf wars with other Chinatown gangs such as the older Flying Dragons, affiliated with Hip Sing Tong and the Division Street Boys affiliated with Tung On Association, and their activities included extortion, kidnapping, murder, racketeering, drug trafficking and illegal gambling. The Ghost Shadows' influence was widespread, having links to Chinatowns in other cities as well as links to Sicilian-American Mafia families. The organization is defunct due to Federal RICO crackdowns during the 1990s.
Members
Wing Yeung Chan
Wing Yeung Chan (born Jan 6, 1945) was president of On Leong Tong and for a decade the leader of the Ghost Shadows. Charged with murder and racketeering, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
Applehead
Shui Ping Wu (born 1956), also known as Applehead (pronounced Apo with silent-L), was one of the original founders of Ghost Shadows and a leader of breakaway factions of Ghost Shadows Bayard Boys during the late 1970s up to his indictments on RICO statutes in the mid-1980s.
Wu was charged with four others in 1977 for extorting some money from a restaurant employee in Montgomery County, MD. He pled guilty in a re-trial in 1983, suspending the final few years of his original 5 year sentence.