Gangsters in schools

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 14

Gangsters in schools

(N.Z.P.A. Staj! Correspondent)

HONG KONG, January, 12.

Hong Kong school teachers, meeting this week-end, have voiced concern about the infiltration of schools by gangsters from Triads, the notorious Chinese secret societies in Hong Kong.

Teachers from schools in some of the British colony’s crowded resettlement areas alleged that up to 70 per cent of their pupils were Triad members.

Four out of every 10 pupils at an exclusive Kowloon school were alleged to have Triad associations and

118 out of a class of 44 at another school were reported to be involved with the Triads.

Teachers said that at one secondary school they had discovered a plot by the big 14K Society to infiltrate schools on a large scale over the next two years. Parents in the New Territories bordering China said that Triad Society gangsters were demanding protection money from pupils travelling by train. DRUG-RUNNING

The Triads, which originated in Imperial China and later established societies in Asian cities like Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong, are heavily involved in vice, protection rackets, and drugrunning in Hong Kong. Many of Hong Kong’s 100

murders last year were the results of clashes between rival Triads,

The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union,. which called the meeting this j week-end to discuss the 1 problem of Triad infiltration of schools, said the police had been unable to deal effectively with the Triads. But an officer of the police Triad Society Bureau, while admitting the existence of Triad infiltration in schools, said there was no evidence that it was on a mass scale. Police were keeping a close watch on the situation, Ihe said. There is so far no suggestion of Triad infiltration of Government and private English schools, where most New Zealand parents in Hong Kong send their children. ft