#文章首发挑战赛#
On August 4, 2016, the U.S. federal courthouse was crowded with people who came to hear the trial, and even a number of well-known media outlets waited outside the courthouse. The reason why this trial caused such a big sensation is mainly because the person on trial is Zhou Guoxiang, the largest Chinese gang boss in the United States.
In court, Zhou Guoxiang was charged with as many as 162 crimes, and finally the court sentenced Zhou Guoxiang to 2,900 years in prison, which is very rare in the entire judicial history of the United States. In order to arrest Zhou Guoxiang, the FBI sent undercover agents to his side until he found evidence of his crime.
Who is this Zhou Guoxiang? Why is he guilty of so many crimes, and how did he fall into the legal net?
Joined the gang at a young age
Chow Kwok-cheung was born in Hong Kong in 1960, when Hong Kong was a mixed bag of gangs. Zhou Guoxiang's family conditions are not good, coupled with his short stature, so he is always the one who is bullied in school. But this kind of bullying did not make him succumb, and he would fight hard every time, although in the end the result was always beaten harder.
It is precisely because of growing up in such an environment that Zhou Guoxiang slowly no longer pinned his hopes on reading to change his life, but believed that only by force could he protect himself and change his fate. So Zhou Guoxiang, who was only 9 years old, began to mix with society early.
Although Zhou Guoxiang began to mix in society very early, he was still looked down upon, and because of his physical defects, he was nicknamed "Shrimp Boy" on the road. In his gang, he was a little transparent, and in order to change this situation, and at the same time to make up for his congenital shortcomings, he began to learn martial arts.
With the force of force, Zhou Guoxiang began to mix in the school, became the "boss" of the school, and there were many younger brothers under his hands, in the school he wantonly collected protection money from his classmates, if he did not pay him protection money on time, in exchange for his beating, and because of this, Zhou Guoxiang was directly expelled from the school.
After leaving school, Chow was introduced to the gangster triad, which was very famous in Hong Kong at the time, where he seemed to find his meaning. Although Zhou Guoxiang is not very old, he has a flexible brain and a ruthless energy. In another gang fight, Zhou Guoxiang made people relax their vigilance against him with his thin appearance, he rushed directly to the other party's boss, took out the knife hidden in his arms and slashed the opponent's boss, so that his gang won in this fight.
After this incident, he successfully attracted the attention of the elders in the gang and prepared to focus on cultivating Zhou Guoxiang. However, his parents still knew about his mixed society. His parents were worried that he might do anything if he continued like this, so they simply sent him to San Francisco, USA.
But Zhou Guoxiang had already tasted the sweetness brought to him by the gangsters, so how could he give up so easily? So before leaving, he asked the patriarch for a letter of recommendation and directly recommended him to the triad branch in the United States. After arriving in San Francisco, Zhou Guoxiang entered the gangsters in the United States as he wished.
Every time there is a fight between gangs, Zhou Guoxiang is the most ruthless one. In a firefight, Zhou Guoxiang did not have an advantage in numbers at all, but he was at such a disadvantage against more than 20 people by one person, and by the time the reinforcements arrived, he had already won the victory by himself.
It was through this incident that Zhou Guoxiang established his prestige in the gang, and his status rose all the way, and even sat in the second position.
The Black Boss Road
After that, Zhou Guoxiang became more arrogant, armed brawls became commonplace, and even a lot of lives were stained on his hands. And his arrogant behavior also attracted the attention of the police. Once, when the police learned that they had gathered to fight again, they promptly surrounded dozens of people, including Zhou Guoxiang, and finally arrested all of them.
But it didn't take long for Zhou Guoxiang to be released on bail. After coming out, Zhou Guoxiang did not restrain in the slightest, and he set his goal on drug trafficking, but the good times did not last long, and it didn't take long for Zhou Guoxiang's drug den to be served by the police, and Zhou Guoxiang also got 20 years of prison life.
This time there was no bail, and in order to regain his freedom, Zhou Guoxiang decisively chose to betray his brother when he learned that the police needed a tainted witness to testify against the boss of the triad. It is precisely because of this that Zhou Guoxiang received a commutation of his sentence for his meritorious service, and even had the opportunity to be released on bail.
However, Zhou Guoxiang clearly knows that the most taboo on the road is betrayal and betrayal, this time he betrayed the triad, I am afraid that the triad has no place for him, and it will even attract hunting. In order to save his life, he turned around and threw himself into the Wuzhou Hongmen Zhigong Court, which is a much more powerful gang than the triad, and also used it to escape the triad's pursuit.
After being released from prison, Zhou Guoxiang was not completely free, and in order to prevent him from continuing to do evil, he was put on a tracker. So after being released from prison, Zhou Guoxiang began to take the road of "charity". In front of the media, he looked even more kind, and many people were deceived by his appearance, even the police.
The police saw that Zhou Guoxiang had been doing very well during the time he was released from prison, so they removed the tracker tied to Zhou Guoxiang. And this also happened to take advantage of Zhou Guoxiang's heart. During this time, Zhou Guoxiang was a "good person" on the surface, but he did a lot of unsightly things behind the scenes. This also gave Zhou Guoxiang the right to speak in the Zhigong Court, and even became one person in the gang and above ten thousand. But Zhou Guoxiang's ambition is much more than that.
In February 2006, Liang Yi, the leader of the Zhi Gong Court, was suddenly attacked and killed, and the mastermind behind this incident was Zhou Guoxiang. And Zhou Guoxiang also sat on the top spot as he wished, and the entire Zhigong Hall fell into the hands of Zhou Guoxiang.
After that, Zhou Guoxiang became more unscrupulous, he began to use money to win over high-ranking officials of the local government, drug production and drug trafficking, murder and brawls and other evil deeds caused people's dissatisfaction, but because he had already taken care of the government, the local government also turned a blind eye. And the other gangs knew that there was a protective umbrella behind the Zhigong Court, and they all dared to be angry but did not dare to speak.
Zhou Guoxiang's hand even reached out to the arms business, monopolizing more than half of San Francisco's arms business. Zhou Guoxiang, who has power and money in his hands, even wants to fund his experience to be made into a movie so that it can be passed on to future generations. However, just when he was full of beautiful imaginations for his future life, his overly arrogant behavior had aroused strong dissatisfaction from the US government, and Zhou Guoxiang was once again targeted by the US police.
Arrested in the United States
But it is not so simple to catch Zhou Guoxiang's handle, although the Zhigongtang has been involved in a wide range of fields under his leadership over the years, but because of the previous experience in prison, Zhou Guoxiang acted very carefully, many things were done by Zhou Guoxiang's younger brother, and the police did not have Zhou Guoxiang's clear handle.
In order to completely eradicate the "cancer" of Zhou Guoxiang, the FBI decided to send an undercover agent to Zhou Guoxiang's side to collect evidence of Zhou Guoxiang's crime, and they named this operation "Operation White Clothes".
Under the arrangement of the FBI in the United States, the undercover agent began to contact Zhi Gongtang as a gangster. And Zhi Gongtang did not doubt the identity of this undercover agent, after all, at this time, Zhi Gongtang was already famous, and many gangsters from other countries would take the initiative to ask to join Zhi Gongtang, which was already commonplace at that time.
After the undercover agent successfully entered the court, he began to approach Zhou Guoxiang step by step, if he wanted to collect evidence of Zhou Guoxiang's crime, he must become his cronies. In order to win Zhou Guoxiang's trust, the FBI also wasted a lot of effort.
Just going undercover to work in the gang cost a lot of money. However, even so, it took more than three years for the undercover agent to break into Zhou Guoxiang's interior. The undercover agent gained Zhou Guoxiang's trust step by step, and every time Zhou Guoxiang made any moves, he would secretly record Zhou Guoxiang's conversations, take pictures of some of Zhou Guoxiang's unsightly things with a pinhole camera, and even send some of Zhou Guoxiang's secret documents to the FBI.
When Zhou Guoxiang sent undercover agents to carry out some illegal and criminal activities, the undercover agents recorded Zhou Guoxiang or filmed some top-secret information hidden in Zhou Guoxiang's office. Unknowingly, Zhou Guoxiang fell into the big net tailored for him by the police step by step.
In 2013, Zhou Guoxiang planned to murder Jiang Daan, the veteran of the court, and this operation happened to be undercover to get sufficient evidence, laying the groundwork for the downfall of Zhou Guoxiang. The undercover agent was ambushed by Zhou Guoxiang's side for five years, and he saw with his own eyes how Zhou Guoxiang did evil. When he returned all the evidence to the FBI, they knew that it was all over.
Under the round-up of the American police, Zhou Guoxiang, who thinks highly of himself, finally fell into the legal net. On August 4, 2016, Zhou Guoxiang ushered in the court's trial of him. In the face of the judge's accusations against him, Zhou Guoxiang was still quibbling at first, but when all the evidence was in front of him, Zhou Guoxiang still wanted to clear his name, until he saw the undercover agent who appeared in the court, he knew that this time he should be in danger.
Zhou Guoxiang committed as many as 162 crimes over the years, and finally the court sentenced Zhou Guoxiang to 2,900 years in prison. Today's Zhou Guoxiang is over sixty years old, and perhaps he is still lamenting the "glorious deeds" of his youth, but facing the high walls of the prison, I don't know if he will repent in his heart. After all, what he did led to the breakup of countless families.
Zhou Guoxiang's life may be able to use the "legend", but his status and even wealth are obtained by stepping on other people's corpses. Skynet is magnificent, negligent but not leaky, and in the end he can only spend the rest of his life paying for his actions.