How the Chinese mafia became boss in the Red Light District
In the 1970s, Amsterdam's Chinatown was the scene of a bloody war between Chinese triads who disputed control over illegal gambling houses and the emerging heroin trade.
History
Cees Koring
Jun 26 2018 | 10:35
Bureau Warmoesstraat
Part of the Zeedijk, the Stormsteeg, Geldersekade and Binnen Bantammerstraat is also called Chinatown. A big word for a piece of the capital of a few hundred square meters, but in the 1970s this place was big enough for tough, rarely seen crime. A bloody war was fought in the streets of Amsterdam-Chinatown between Chinese who disputed control over (illegal) gambling houses and the emerging heroin trade.

The soldiers in that war were members of societies with mysterious names such as 14 K, Wo Lee Kwan, Wo Sing Wo and Fuk Yee Hing. There were suddenly dead people on the bridge at Binnen Bantammerstraat and on the quays on the edge of the warm neighborhood. On May 20, 1975, Arie Damsteegt and his colleague Rinus Waterloo, detectives from the Warmoesstraat bureau who were in charge of Chinese affairs, found themselves in the middle of the gangster war.

This time the center of the violence was Wahkiauw/Si Hoi, a gambling house and restaurant that ran from the Geldersekade to the Prins Hendrikkade. A few months earlier, its boss, Chung Mon, had been murdered in mafia-like fashion near his business and in the middle of the day. Damsteegt: 'Since the murder of Chung Mon, there has been constant rot at Wahkiauw. There were arguments and shouting matches in which mothers were severely insulted. That provoked fights. Rinus and I had an appointment on May 20 with people who were the bosses of the gambling house after the murder of Chung Mon.'

Damsteegt continues: 'We wanted peace and quiet in the tent. While waiting for the conversation, we had a cup of tea in the part of the building where a travel agency was also located. Suddenly we heard sounds that sounded like fireworks: prr, prr. And immediately afterwards a bunch of Chinese people emerged through a door that led to the gambling house. They literally crawled and rolled over each other to get out. “ Ta chicken!” it sounded. "A raid!" Rinus and I pulled out our pistols – we still had those little FN's – and we went inside the gambling house. I heard bullets hitting the wall around me. There was a man standing near the gambling tables with a large, shiny firearm. We knew him as the boss of the security team; the security service, so to speak. He pointed the gun right at my head. Cursing in Chinese, I walked over to him and took the gun from him. I didn't think he was going to shoot me, but if he had, I would have gone to hell swearing.'

Damsteegt: 'I saw Rinus standing with a man lying at a gambling table. “He's blowing bubbles of blood,” Rinus shouted. The man was already dead. With the Chinese's weapon and my own pistol in my hands, I walked on to the side of the Geldersekade. At that time there was a sand dam there. A number of Chinese then burst in. I shot too. It was wrong and at the same time it crossed my mind that I was happy about it. There was also shooting from the gambling house, but that stopped when we walked forward. Suddenly colleagues drove up from everywhere. I have never seen so many officers arrive at the same time so quickly. With the exception of one or two, the entire group of attackers could be captured. Around and in the gambling house there were two dead and a whole host of injured, also from stabbings. It was chaos.'

Commissioner Gerard Toorenaar, the former chief of the central police in Amsterdam, wrote in his memoirs in 1985 that the violence stemmed from a battle between triads, secret Chinese societies. These groups were active in drug trafficking and in the gambling business. Wo Lee Kwan wanted to compete with Amsterdam gambling boss Chung Mon by opening a gambling house near his club Wahkiauw, according to Toorenaar.

Chung Mon, nicknamed Fokkie Lang ("afraid of no one"), threatened to drain the triad. He wanted to cut off their heroin lines to Amsterdam, which is why the Wo Lee Kwan successfully sent assassins after him on March 3, 1975. A few months later, on that infamous May 20, the bloody power grab at Wahkiauw followed, in which Damsteegt and Waterloo became involved. Arie Damsteegt: 'At that time we had just gained a little insight into the backgrounds of those triads. But when we first talked to colleagues about secret Chinese societies, we were called morons. Such things did not exist in Amsterdam at all, or so it was initially argued.'

The first Chinese settled in the Netherlands around 1910. It concerned personnel on the large steam vessels - coal barges and stokers - who hung around in sheds (' boarding houses ') in the port areas of Rotterdam and Amsterdam between sea voyages. Gradually, Chinese also settled in the residential areas near the ports. As early as 1916, there was a small community in the Buiten Bantammerstraat in Amsterdam, according to Karina Meeuwse in her book Het Huis van Han , about the history of the Chinese in our country. The Chinese opened lodging houses, restaurants and laundries. Those who were not so enterprising found a job there.

The crisis of the 1930s brought even more sailors to shore and the peanut man entered the scene. Forced by unemployment, many Chinese took to the streets with a container full of peanut cookies for their bellies (' pinda, peanut, lekka, lekka '). Willy Derby sang a song about it and this created a stereotypical image. In fact, the Netherlands knew nothing more about the Chinese than that they came from a distant country, could not pronounce the 'r', had slit eyes and sold cookies. On the other side was a very closed community. Even when heated arguments broke out among themselves, the warring parties covered each other with unprecedented silence.

Such as in the summer of 1922. Commissioner Voordewind mentioned in his memoirs about that time a shooting between Chinese, killing and wounding, on the Oude Waal in old Amsterdam. During the interrogations, the suspects 'shut up': they kept their jaws clenched. Police only discovered that the altercation involved groups called Bo On and Three Fingers, but what it was all about remained unclear. "There may have been foul practices in the recruitment of sailors," the commissioner said.

In fact, there was a war between triads, which had been contesting each other's control over employment on seagoing vessels for years, but the police had no idea of ??this at the time. The shooting on the street gave public order a serious blow and caused so much unrest that hundreds of Chinese were deported from the country.

Around the 1940s, there were few Chinese in our country due to the deportation policy. Those who stayed could be found in the Katendrecht district of Rotterdam and in the Binnen Bantammerstraat in Amsterdam. It was called the 'Chinese street': Thong Yan Kai. The residents there kept their traditions alive. In Yo Li, the first gambling house in the city, fantan and mahjong were played loudly for a lot of money. There was also an opium den that was left undisturbed by the police. The war of 1922, fought in the streets, was long forgotten.

In 1977 , The Hague Post quoted a Dutch junkie who had been getting his opium in the Binnen Bantammerstraat for years: 'There were four or five of those old Chinese people, next to the gambling house. Very old men, some 80 years old. At certain times they came outside to see if there was a customer. Just making a few deals on the corner. 10 guilders for a slice of opium. No unrest. No crime. It was made in the opium den for the Chinese scene. There they lay smoking on low wooden beds, with long pipes. There was a large iron pot on the fire in which the boss prepared the opium. The Chinese were then left completely alone; the police did not look further into it as long as it did not become bigger.'