The Chinese Community's Wall of Secrecy: The Brutal Murder of Philip Wong

This episode of Scottish Murders explores the unresolved 1985 murder of Kwong ‘Philip’ Wong, a prominent Chinese businessman in Glasgow. It explores the rise of triad gangs in Scotland during the 1970s-80s and their impact on the Chinese community. It explores Philip’s rise as a respected community leader, his involvement in exposing extortion schemes, and relationship with triad groups, and the brutal attack that ended his life. It examines various theories behind the murder, including triad rivalries and business disputes, while highlighting the challenges faced by investigators due to a wall of silence within the Chinese community. The episode also touches on the broader impact of triad activities in Scotland and the ongoing efforts to solve this decades-old unresolved case.

SOURCES:
Please see our website for all source material and photos at scottishmurders.com/episodes/philipwong

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CREDITS:
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Researched, Written and Edited by Dawn Young
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MUSIC:
ES_Battle of Aonach Mor - Deskant - epidemicsound

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Scottish Murders. Now, I know
not everyone enjoys hearing unsolved or unresolved murder cases because
there is no resolution. However, these murders deserve to be
told too, and so for this episode, I'm going to
be covering an unresolved murder case which happened back in
nineteen eighty five. Now, while the case does remain unsolved,

(00:21):
the police believe they do know who carried out the murder.
They have just been unable to find and bring those
responsible to justice. Before I get started, there's a few

(00:57):
things I'd like to tell you about. The first thing
is we're going to be at Crime Con in London
on the seventh and eighth of June twenty twenty five.
It's at the same venue as it was last year
and it was such a fantastic event. If you can
make it at all, it would be great to see
you there. There are going to be so many content
creators there for you to meet, including ourselves, as well

(01:17):
as a choice of talks and even interactive sessions. If
you would love to come along but could only make
it for one day, that's no problem as there are
now day tickets available for either the Saturday or the Sunday.
Whether you can come for both days or just one,
don't forget to use the code Scottish for a discount
and we really look forward to seeing you there. I

(01:39):
also just wanted to give a wee shout out to
the darkst Network, the network that Scottish Murders is part of.
You can visit the website and find so many podcasts
with a dark side that you can have a listen to.
We're always adding more fantastic podcasts to the network, so
if you've not checked for a week while, please visit
dark castnetwork dot com and hopefully you'll find a podcast

(02:01):
or two that you can binge listen to. One other
thing I want to tell you about is that I've
recently been interviewed on the podcast called Nurtured Your Zest,
hosted by Ashley King. Now, many of you who watch
our episodes on YouTube or follow us on social media
will know that I very rarely show my face. It's
just something that makes me uncomfortable, although it is getting

(02:21):
easier now that I've had no choice but to do
it since we started our new business, clearing Ton. But
for Scottish murders. I still prefer to stay behind the
camera and microphone. Nurture Your Zest is a video podcast,
and I recorded with Ashley at our podcast studio, something
I'd never done before, and I was so nervous about
doing so much so that throughout the episode you can

(02:42):
see me fiddling with something in my hand. That's a
crystal that Ashley gave me before we started recording, just
something for me to focus on. Halfway through, though, I'd
played with it so much that it broke in two
in my hand. But anyway, I ended up enjoying the
chat I had with ashleygh and I completely forgot about
the crew watching on from behind the cameras, and I
wanted to share it with you as it gives a

(03:04):
rare wee insight into me. So that's the Nurture your
Zest podcast, and you can watch it on YouTube and
Spotify or listen wherever else you get you podcasts. Bear
in mind though I was very nervous, so please be
kind if you do watch it. Okay, So on to
today's case. When I started research in this case, I
had no idea it would reveal just how much of

(03:25):
a bubble I lived in, how completely unaware I had
been to what was going on around me when I
was a child, a young adult, and to this day.
This unresolved murder took place on the eighth of October
nineteen eighty five, just after midnight, on Rose Street in Glasgow,
which is a straight off Suckey Hall Street. At this
time I was seven years old, and as you may know,

(03:47):
I lived in Open, which is about a two hour
twenty minute drive northwest of Glasgow, or just over three
hours on a train, and it was the train we
mostly took when me, my mum, cousins and aunt visited
Glasgow for day trips. We loved going to Glasgow kids.
It was so exciting a day out and so much
to see and do. I doubt my aunt and mum
felt the same though, dragging three kids who progressively got

(04:08):
more and more tired as the day went on around Glasgow,
but anyway, we loved it and we either went to
Agile Street or Suki Hall Street, where we would end up
eating at one of the many restaurants on either street.
It was such a novelty for us, coming from the
small town of Open, so it blew my mind a
wee bit when I found out during my research for
this episode just what had been going on in and

(04:29):
around Sucki Hall Street as me and my family merrily
shopped and ate there. It really did open my eyes.
But I'll get to that first. Let me tell you
a wee bit about forty nine year old Quang Wong,
or Philip as he was known. Philip arrived in Glasgow
from China in nineteen fifty eight, when he would have
been about twenty two years old. Initially, Philip stayed in

(04:51):
the Garden at Hill area, which was known as the
city's Chinatown, along with his fellow Chinese community who had
settled in Glasgow. However, Philip was not hap we just settling.
He had ambition and he worked hard to open his
own Chinese restaurant in Glasgow, which he did on Sucky
Hall Street and named it The Lucky Star. Over the years,
Philip not only met his future wife Josephine, but he

(05:13):
also grew his restaurant empire, eventually opening and running Chinese
restaurants in Edinburgh, Perth and Sterling, as well as The
Lucky Star in Glasgow. Philip and Josephine by this time
had three young children and made the decision to move
away from Glasgow's Chinatown the Garnet Hill area and instead
set up home near the town center in Barhead in Renfrewshire,

(05:36):
located about the twenty eight minute drive southwest of Glasgow,
and their three children went to school in bar Head.
It's unknown of Philip's wife, Josephine and the couple's three
children continued to visit their friends in the Garnet Hill area,
but Philip certainly did, as by the mid seventies he
was known as, according to the Glasgow Times on the
thirtieth of September twenty twenty, the unofficial leader of the

(05:59):
now five thousand strong Chinese community in Glasgow and a
much respected figure and high profile businessman in Scotland. And
so when in the late nineteen seventies Chinese restaurant owners
in Glasgow, Air and Calmarnock began to be extorted for money,
including Philip himself, the Chinese community looked to Philip Wong

(06:20):
to take the lead in sorting this problem out. Now,
according to an article by a senior police source in
The Daily Mail in two thousand and three, if a
Chinese businessman wants to make a success of himself, he
must align himself to one of the Triad societies, and
while he may not be a criminal, he has to
pay to have their protection. Now, this is when I
started to realize that so much more had been going

(06:43):
on on Sucky Hall Streets in Glasgow than I ever
could have realized. Triads in Glasgow. Like I said earlier,
I was completely ignorant of this being at Scotland problem.
I'd obviously seen triads been mentioned on TV and in films,
but I never associated them with Scotland the UK. To
be honest, I thought this only occurred in America or

(07:03):
in Asia. So I was intrigued. How bad was the
problem and what brought it to Scotland. Well, according to
many articles I read throughout the seventies and eighties, the
Triad gangs in Scotland were massive, scarily so it did
apparently quieten down a bit in the early to mid nineties,
due in part to what happened to Philip Wong before

(07:23):
it was reported again in the late nineties that police
in the UK were expecting impending masses of triads in
the UK. But I'll come back to that. I'm skipping
too far ahead, So back to the late seventies, the
Chinese restaurant owners were having rual problems with being extorted
for money by Triad gangs and everyone was looking to
Philip Wong for help. But what could Philip do? Well?

(07:47):
Through his time living and working in Glasgow and building
his personal and business life, he had made many acquaintances,
including police officers, and so he approached the then head
of Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Pearson, and explained
the situation, with the end result being that Graham and
his team would investigate the allegations. Over a period of months,

(08:08):
trust was built between the police officers and the restaurant
owners who were being extorted and a case was slowly
built against five men from Hong Kong, the leader of
the gang being called King Chan. Following the investigation, according
to an article in The Scotsman on the ninth of
October nineteen eighty five, the five men were charged with
being members of Triad group Shui Fung and trying to

(08:31):
extort nearly ten thousand pounds from the Chinese restaurant owners
in Glasgow, Air and Kilmarnock. The five men pleaded not
guilty and the trial took place at the High Court
in Glasgow in nineteen seventy nine and lasted for a week,
where eventually King Chan changed his plea to one have
been guilty of extorting two thousand, seven hundred pound and

(08:51):
attempting to extort a further two hundred pound from the
Chinese restaurant owners in Glasgow. He also pleaded guilty to
threatening the restaurant owners with violence if they did not
pay up. He was sentenced to five years in prison
and the Crown accepted the not guilty pleas of the
other four men. The judge presiding over the case praised
the restaurant owners for coming forward as witnesses, despite the

(09:14):
threats they and their families had faced for doing so. Again,
I knew nothing about this apparent high profile extortion court
case in Glasgow. So okay, Philip Wong and the other
Chinese restaurant owners had outed these five men who were
apparently part of the Shuefung Triad group. Great, But then
I remembered what I had read before that if a

(09:35):
Chinese businessman wants to make a success of himself, he
must align himself to one of the triad societies and
pay for their protection. So were these Chinese businessmen refusing
to be part of a triad group or were they
with another triad group and if so, why weren't they
protecting them? And what about Philip? As despite him being
well liked and respected, he had been the one to

(09:58):
contact the place about the extortion by the Shueifung triad group,
which in turn had led to one of his members
being found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.
Should he be worried about repercussions or was he protected? Well,
I'll come to that. In the meantime, Philip continued to
grow his empire, venturing into the Chinese video rentals business,

(10:19):
a business that quickly became very lucrative for him, which
in turn attracted the attention of others who wanted in
on the action, but Philip was not so keen to
share his profits. Would his refusal lead to repercussions? Or again,
was Philip protected? By Tuesday, the eighth of October nineteen
eighty five, forty nine year old Kwang or Philip Wong

(10:42):
was flying high with his business ventures. He was a
well known and respected businessman. He had a wife who
he loved, and three healthy and happy children. Yes, he thought,
as he bid good night to twenty of his friends
and business acquaintances who he had been gambling with that
evening at the Tintin Bookshop, which was for another success
story of Philip's an illegal gambling den. He was very

(11:04):
happy with how his life had turned out since moving
to Glasgow in nineteen fifty eight. As Philip closed the
door of the Tintin Bookshop on Rose Street in the
Chinatown district of Garnet Hell about half past midnight, and
walked the short distance to where he had parked his
Mercedes car further along Rose Street, he whistled to himself,
smiling as he thought about going home and cuddling up

(11:26):
to his wife, Josephine. Philip took his car keys from
his pocket and tried to put the keys in the
door lock to open his car. Instantly realizing that something
was very wrong, Philip dropped his car keys as he
saw three men quickly descend on him and begin to
attack him with machettes. Philip fell almost instantly to the ground,
overcome by the three men and their weapons of choice,

(11:49):
but still the attack carried on. The blow was running
down on Philip again and again as he lay on
the otherwise quiet street as Philip layd still on Rose Street,
blood pulling around him, his three attackers disappeared from the
scene as quickly as they had arrived. So was Philip
not associated with a Triad group who could offer him

(12:09):
protection as a Chinese business owner, despite it being reported
that if a Chinese businessman wanted to make a success
of himself, he must align himself to one of the
Triad societies and pay for their protection. And if Philip
was associated with a Triad gang, why was he not protected? Okay,
so let's go back a wee bit. Like I said,
I knew very little about triads, only being vaguely aware

(12:32):
of them from films, but having no idea what they
stood for or were involved in, and certainly having no
idea they were operating in Glasgow and other cities in
Scotland to this day. So here's what I found out
about triads before we get into the investigation into Philip
Wong's murder. According to an article in The Daily Mail
in two thousand and three, triads have existed in Chinese

(12:54):
societies for centuries, once being a proud army of three
hundred years ago. However, according to an article in the
Daily Record, on the fourteenth of January nineteen eighty eight.
The Triad groups have since degenerated into an immense empire
of crime rolled by terror, with a Scottish detective explaining
in nineteen eighty eight that the Secret Triad Society have

(13:16):
bizarre rights for new members, including having to take thirty
six oaths and drink each other's blood. He went on
to say that they make their money through various activities
including casinos, restaurants, money lending, drugs protection, prostitution, extortion, Chinese
video piracy, counterfeiting, illegal gambling, and, according to an article

(13:39):
in The Daily Mail in two thousand and three, in
modern times, are also associated with violence, vice and drugs,
passport forgery, and human trafficking. Back in nineteen eighty eight,
the main Triad groups were the fourteen k the Washing
War and the War on Locke, also known as the
Shuefung and known as the Chinese Mafia, with the Washing

(14:00):
War and the War on Locke apparently being locked in
a bloody battle for control in Hong Kong. A senior
police officer told the Daily Record in two thousand and
three that triads will always be a part of Chinese society.
When you have a large number of Chinese living together,
and that the threat Triad society presents is very real
and that they are very bad people, but that ninety

(14:23):
five percent of the Chinese community want nothing to do
with them. Apparently, the Triads first appeared in Scotland in
the nineteen seventies, following large numbers of Chinese families moving there.
Even more gang members fled to the UK in nineteen
eighty four and again in the mid nineteen nineties when
it became clear that Hong Kong was going to be
returned to China. While the Triads are established in Edinburgh, Perth,

(14:47):
Dundee and Aberdeen, they are particularly prevalent on the west
coast of Scotland, Glasgow specifically, which is apparently a rich
recruiting area for the Triad gangs, who count illegal Chinese
immigrants among them their foot soldiers, and according to a
Scottish detective, they are the percentage men and live off
the fear of the hard working, law abiding Chinese community.

(15:09):
Despite it being reported by a senior police officer that
things may have gone quiet in the early to mid
nineties following the trouble in the seventies and eighties, the
Triads have never gone far away, and articles in Scottish
newspapers throughout the two thousands with headlines reading family moved
to Lanarkshire and given new identities amid Triad threats over

(15:29):
gambling debts, Triads in turf War, Triads run one billion
pound Scott's cannabis industry and Triads raking in ten million
pounds as they flood Scotland with counterfeit tobacco show that
the Triads are still very active in Scotland, with an
article in the Daily Record in two thousand and three

(15:50):
stating that it wasn't just small business owners who were
linked to the Tryad groups, but also that several prominent
figures and high flyers in Scottish business life Glasgow in particular,
claimed that they held senior positions in Triad societies and
that they regularly visited senior Triad members in Hong Kong,
with another source saying in the same article that the

(16:12):
major players know all the other guys, but they seldom
do business with anyone other than their own, and the
violence is rarely directed towards anyone other than their own.
It was also reported by police in the same article
that Philip Wong was a white paper fan or business
advisor and senior member to the Shuefung Triad Group, and

(16:32):
that he actually led this group. Although Philip's widow, Josephine
has always strongly rejected this claim, it was stated that
Philip actually had protection from the washing War Triad Group,
a rival triad group of the Shuefung Triad Group. The
leader of the washing Wa Triad Group was a notorious
Chinese triad figure known as Georgie Pie. We'll hear more

(16:54):
about Georgia Paie later in the episode. But if Philip
had protection from the washing War Tried Group and was
a business adviser for the Shui Fung Trier Group rival
Tryer groups, then could this have been behind Philip's attack
and murder or had something else led to this? Okay,
So back to Tuesday, the eighth of October nineteen eighty five,

(17:14):
just after half past midnight, and forty nine year old
quang Or Philip Wong is now lying unconscious and fatally
wounded in a pool of blood on Rose Street outside
his car, having just been attacked by three men with machettes. Sadly,
Philip Wong died very shortly after being attacked and his
body was identified as it lay on the street by

(17:36):
Constable Simon Keenan twenty minutes after the attack took place.
Constable Simon Keenan had been working near by when the
call came in that there had been an attack, and
he was called to identify the body as he had
built up a relationship with not only Glasgow's growing Chinese
and Asian community over the previous three years as the
place's Ethnic Laison officer, but also directly with Philip Wong. However,

(18:00):
even this close relationship that Constable Simon Keenan had built
with the Chinese community would not be enough to break
the wall of silence that surrounded this case. That, however,
would be the least of Constable Keenan's worries, as after
two months of working on Philip Wong's murder inquiry, he
had to be removed from the case for his own safety.

(18:21):
Leading the investigation into Philip Wong's murder was Detective Chief
Superintendent Charles Craig, who was the joint head of Strathclyde's CID,
and within twenty four hours of Philip's murder, the possibility
that Triay groups could have been involved was already being considered,
with the Detective Chief Superintendent saying in an article in
The Scotsman on the ninth of October nineteen eighty five

(18:44):
that this line of inquiry hadn't been rolled out and
a theory was that Philip had been murdered as revenge
for his involvement in a major extortion trial in nineteen
seventy nine, although he did assert that they did have
many other lines of inquiry and that they would not
be pushed doing the triad angle to the exclusion of
all others. Although he did go on to say that

(19:04):
despite Philip Wong having been gambling immediately before his murder,
from their investigations, this did not appear to have been
a factor in his killing. More than fifty detectives from
a Serious crime Squad and CID, along with Constable Simon Keenan,
were drafted in to work on this inquiry and they
began conducting door to door inquiries in the area. And

(19:25):
while they were hindered slightly by the language barrier and
the need to use translators, the real problem they encountered
was the lack of information forthcoming from the close knit
Chinese community. The Chinese community in Glasgow were in fear
of speaking to police officers in case of retribution if
this was a triad killing, and so the police kept
hearing the same thing again and again. No one could

(19:48):
think of anyone who would want to have killed Philip Wong,
but detectives on this inquiry would not give up easily,
and in fact they went on to set up a
specialist Southeast Asian intelligence desk, and some detectives even began
to learn Cantonese, with one officer saying in a two
thousand and three Daily Mail article that that inquiry caused

(20:08):
us to really focus on the Chinese way of life
and build up more knowledge and intelligence than we ever
had before. So while some detectives and officers were immerging
themselves in the Chinese way of life to try and
gain trust and information from the Chinese community in Glasgow,
two days after phillips murder, it would appear that detectives
were now very much focused on Triard groups being involved

(20:31):
in Phillip's murder. As it was reported in the Scotsman,
the detectives were now investigating a possible link with an
incident in Manchester in England, which had occurred six months
earlier and involved triad groups, and that they were also
receiving help from a specialist unit in London. However, even
more important, it was now being reported that detectives were

(20:52):
examining the possibility if the motive for Phillip's murder could
have involved a business deal that had gone wrong. And
that leads us back to Georgia Pie. So that isn't
his real name. His real name is Ya Laplung. And
I know I'm butchering all these names, but I'm doing
my best. His nickname, Georgia Pi apparently means the limping man,

(21:12):
which he was so called after he was attacked and
his leg was chopped off with a meat cleaver. Georgie
Pi back in nineteen eighty five, was alleged to have
been the leader of the Chinese triad group Washing Wah
was said to be involved in all aspects of organized crime,
and that his name struck fear into Chinese people. Now
you remember I said earlier that Philip Wong had branched

(21:35):
out into Chinese video rentals and that it had become
quite lucrative for him. Well, one line of inquiry the
police investigated and from what I've read it was one
of the main theories, and one which continues to this day,
is that Philip Wong had refused to do a business
deal with Georgia Pie and the Washing War Triad group,
who wanted a share of Philip's lucrative Chinese video rental business,

(21:57):
with a Daily Mail article saying that this had caused
Georgie Pie to have lost face, and apparently it had
been well known that Georgie Pie had wanted revenge on Philip.
Georgie Pie's involvement into Phillip's murder was investigated, and he
was even taken into custody and questioned in September nineteen
eighty six when he arrived in Bristol, England from Hong Kong,

(22:19):
where he lived. But it was reported in the Daily
Record on the nineteenth September nineteen eighty six that Georgie
Pie had been interviewed purely as a potential witness in
Phillip's murder investigation, that he had been released, and that
Georgie Pie had been in Hong Kong at the time
of Phillip's murder. So that was the end of that
line of inquiry. But let's go back a wee bit as.

(22:40):
Despite facing a wall of silence from the Chinese community
in Glasgow, detectives had been able to establish the following.
Right back at the beginning, you'll remember, I said that
Philip had left the Tintin bookshop where he had been
illegally gambling with around twenty other Chinese friends and acquaintances,
and had walked to his car park not to far away,
and it was as he tried to put his key

(23:02):
in the lock that he realized something was terribly wrong. Well,
police found that match sticks had been placed in the
car door lock on the driver side to delay Philip
and getting into his vehicle, distracting and delaying him from
getting into his car and giving his attackers a few
precious seconds to reach him and begin their attack. The
twenty friends and acquaintances that Philip had been gambling with

(23:25):
were not mentioned at all anywhere. The detectives did release
a photo fit of a suspect just off one suspect,
although there were apparently three attackers, but he couldn't find
who had given detectives this description. The suspect was apparently
six foot tall, was well built and smartly dressed, wearing
a dark suit like I said, I don't know where

(23:45):
this description came from and why there was only one
suspect described, as it was stated that there were three attackers,
all of whom apparently were Chinese, and fled the scene
in a car after attacking and killing Philip. They then
apparently proceeded to south along the M eight motorway and
then either headed to Birmingham, nearly a five hour drive
south of Glasgow, or they drove about two hours southwest

(24:09):
to Strunraar and then got a ferry to Northern Ireland.
It was also reported that police had discovered that one
of Phillip's attackers flew to Glasgow from Amsterdam to carry
out this attack. Despite a wall of silence being reported,
police seemed to have been able to find out a
bit about Phillip's attackers, even where at least one arrived
from and how they left Glasgow. And it was claimed

(24:31):
in an article in the Daily Mail in two thousand
and three that police apparently know the three Chinese men
responsible for Philip's murder, they just haven't been traced yet.
But the story doesn't end there. Remember I said that
PC Simon Keenan had spent three years building up a
relationship with Glasgow's growing Asian and Chinese community, including Philip Wong,

(24:53):
as an ethnically as an officer, and that he'd been
the one to identify Philip Wong's body twenty minutes he
had been attacked and murdered while like I said, PC
Keenan was drafted in along with fifty detectives to work
on Phillip's murder inquiry, and he spent just over two
months doing this before he had to be removed from
the inquiry. He later said in an article in The

(25:16):
Glasgow Times in September twenty twenty that it was one
of the scariest times of my life. So what had happened?
It was just before Christmas nineteen eighty five when PC
Simon Keenan was called into the office of the Senior
Officer in charge of the murder inquiry and told that
a reliable source had reported that his life was in danger,

(25:36):
but not just his life, his mother's too. It's not
known why PC Simon Keenan and his mother were specifically targeted,
but credible death threats had been made against them both
due to his involvement in the investigation. In his role
as ethnically aison officer. As both PC Keenan and his
mother's life were in imminent danger. PC Keenan was taking

(25:58):
off the investigation and removed from his role as Ethnic
Laison officer and moved to a completely different department. Like
I said, it doesn't say why P. C. Keenan and
his mother were targeted. Maybe because he'd built up a
relationship with the community and someone was worried he was
getting too close, But like he said, it was one
of the scariest times of his life. While the murder

(26:19):
inquiry carried on, and detectives continued to try and get
information from the Chinese community to help them with the inquiry,
and even Georgie Pie been taken into custody and questioned
by police over Philip's murder in September nineteen eighty six,
a year after the attack and murder, there was little
else detectives could do without information being forthcoming, and so

(26:39):
eventually the murder inquiry ground to a halt. Many who
knew Philips said that he had been a decent and
hard working guy, and that his murder had been a
cowardly act, and that they were shocked by his brutal murder,
but no one else dared come forward with any information
at that time that they may have had about his murderers,
and despite the claim that police knew who the murderers were,

(27:01):
without information on their whereabouts, as of two thousand and three,
they were yet to be traced. And that's kind of
where Philip Wong's a murder inquiry stands, Albeit there have
been many appeals and police probes launched over the years
for people with information to come forward, such as in
October twenty fifteen, when an article on the Daily Record
stated that the Police Scotland Homicide Governance and Review Team

(27:25):
intended to review existing evidence and were appealing for new information,
or in September twenty twenty, almost thirty five years on
from Philip Wong's murder, when The Glasgow Times stated that
detectives had made a dramatic new appeal for information about
Philip Wong's murder and that Philip's murder was being kept
under review and modern forensic techniques were being used to

(27:47):
re examine the original evidence for fresh clues, with Detective
Chief Inspector Suzan Chow saying that after all this time,
it would be just as for his family if those
responsible for his murder were finally put behind the bars. Sadly, though,
nothing came from those appeals, and Philip's murder still remains unresolved.
If anyone knows anything, you can call the police on

(28:09):
one oh one or contact crime stoppers anonymously on eight
hundred five five five one one one. While the Triad
Group's activities did quiet end down in the early to
mid nineteen nineties before becoming more prevalent again in the
late nineties to two thousands, in the eighties, the Triad
Group attacks continued, with Glasgow restaurant owner Ching pick Y

(28:32):
being violently attacked in his Glasgow restaurant at four am
in May nineteen eighty seven in front of horrified customers,
less than two years after Philip Wong's murder. Despite this
vicious attack by two men carrying butcher knives and an
iron bar, Ching survived and his attackers were brought to
justice when Cheng peck Y testified against them in court.

(28:54):
If Philip had survived his attack, would he have been
as brave as Ching pick Y to stand up to
tryad group members, leading to Philip's attackers also having been
brought to justice. Philip had stood with and up for
small business owners in the Chinese community when they were
being extorted for money along with him in the late seventies.
Doesn't he deserve someone to stand up for him when

(29:16):
it comes to his murder. Chingpick Why's two attackers were
jailed for a total of sixteen years in January nineteen
eighty eight at the High Court in Glasgow for the
savage attack on Glasgow restaurant owner chingpick Y, causing severe
injury and danger to his life. The reason for the attack,
which resulted in blows to Ching's neck, legs and knees,

(29:38):
five tendons and an artery being severed in Ching's left
wrist and his wrist bone to have been so severely
dented that a piece of knife blade was found embedded
in the wound, was all because he had successfully bought
a restaurant in Suckey Hall Street that the Shuei Fung
triad group wanted. Following the verdict, Ching said in an
article in the Daily Record that I don't know if

(30:01):
these men will make another move against me. They might,
and if they do, I'll be ready because I'm not
afraid for myself, but I am afraid for my family.
These men are crazy. They could do anything like I said.
After the murder of Philip Wong and the attack on
Ching Pikwai, things did quieten down until the mid to
late nineties, when there were fears that Triad violence was

(30:22):
erupting once again in Scotland following many fleeing Hong Kong
due to it being handed back to China, with it
being reported in an article in The Daily Mail in
two thousand and three that in a three month period,
two shooting incidents and a machette attack in Glasgow were
being blamed on fallouts between Triad members, with a police
officer saying in response to this, a few incidents in

(30:44):
Glasgow have come to our attention recently. That is a
concern and it's something we are watching carefully, but that
it is very difficult to gain information from the ordinary
Chinese people because of the fair fact or the triads hues,
with the article going on to say that so ingrained
and is the fear of Triad groups. An old Chinese
proverb states that it is better to walk through the

(31:05):
gates of hell than through the door of a government official. This,
along with the fact that there were claims that the
Chinese government were in collusion with Triad groups and that
the Chinese government had done their best to force Triad
groups on the UK, with the Chinese government apparently saying,
according to a Daily Mail source, that they do not
want these people back and that it is a case

(31:26):
of Chinese government complicity with organized crime. It is little
wonder that police find it difficult to crack Triad culture
and get any information from the Chinese community. Now. There
is a lot about illegal Triad passage from China to
the UK and how the UK government's hands are tied
when it comes to this, but I'm not going to
go into that. There's lots of information about this on

(31:48):
the internet if you'd like to find out more yourself. Again,
it would appear the Triad groups have gone quiet. Was
not much being reported about them in recent years, although
a police officer did say in a Daily Mail article
that there is much more going on behind the scenes
that never gets reported. But bringing it back to Philip Wong,
it's now been almost forty years since forty nine year

(32:10):
old quang Or Philip Wong was brutally murdered, and his
three killers have still not been caught If you know
anything that can help bring these men to justice and
give his family the closure they deserve, then now is
the time to come forward. Thanks for listening to another
episode of Scottish Murders, the twice Awards shortlisted fortnightly podcast

(32:30):
that brings to light the stories of victims and the
relentless pursuit for justice. If this case has captivated you,
then don't forget to tell a friend to listen or
check out Scottish Murders dot com so together we can
share more Scottish murders. Until next time, I've been your host, Don.

(33:25):
Scottish Murduch is a production of Chlorine Tone