THREE reputed Chinatown gang bosses were dealt a wild card last week by New Jersey gaming authorities which want to ban high-rollers with organised crime links.
Paul Mah, James Lee and Robin Chee face being put on an 'exclusion list' of more than 160 people forbidden from entering any casino in Atlantic City.
The three, who have been linked to either international drug smuggling or the Ghost Shadows gang, are known to have received 'complimentary' incentives because of their patronage.
Officials would not reveal how much they gambled or if any of the money wagered was actually being laundered across the tables. Other people banned from gambling in the city include members of the notorious Gambino family.
'We believe there is sufficient evidence linking these three men to organised crime,' said Frank Catania, acting director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
'Our investigation establishes a clear relationship between these three men and several very dangerous criminal organisations in New York City.' Lee and Chee were identified as leaders of the Ghost Shadows in a Senate sub-committee report on Asian organised crime included in complaints filed with the Casino Control Commission last Tuesday.
Lee, also known in the Chinese community as Bradley Joe, was convicted in 1980 of running a protection racket in Chinatown and was described in court as a leader of Ghost Shadows.
Mah was arrested in an operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, New York Police Department and the FBI on September 8 for allegedly running a drug smuggling ring.
Mah, who is in custody, is accused of importing hundreds of kilograms of heroin from Southeast Asia through Hong Kong since the 1980s and using the Ghost Shadows to distribute it.
In the same sweep, an alleged corrupt police officer, John Gaw, was arrested for tipping off the Ghost Shadows and White Tigers over a two-year period about illegal gambling raids in Chinatown.
Gaw, who immigrated from Hong Kong as a boy, is one of only a few Chinese-Americans in the New York Police Department and has been charged with being a mole for the Chinese underworld.
He is accused of passing on information to alleged Ghost Shadows leaders Chan Wing-yeung and Moy Bong-shun, who were also arrested in the September sweep.
Chan is the head of On Leong Tong and alleged head of the Ghost Shadows. He is also on the Atlantic City exclusion list.
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