Canada

The gang war that forced an alleged triad boss to flee Macau for the safety of Vancouver was a fight for control of the lucrative criminal activity tied to casinos, an expert on Asian organized crime testified Thursday at an immigration hearing.

Det. James Fisher, a former gang expert for the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada and now a member of British Columbia's joint Counter-Exploitation Unit, said the dispute was playing out on the streets of Macau in 1996, when Lai Tong Sang arrived in Canada with his family.

"The point of conflict was who would control the VIP rooms and the control of the VIP rooms was important because it would give access to profit through criminal enterprises," Fisher testified.

According to intelligence from other police forces, Fisher said foreign nationals were offered junkets to the casinos, where they gambled and spent their way into the debt of the gangs, in the form of either cash or favours.

Police believe on one side of the bloodshed was the Shui Fung, or Water Room gang, headed by Lai. On the other end the Macau branch of 14K, purportedly the second-largest triad in the world, headed by a notorious gangster known as Broken Tooth Koi.

"My knowledge was that Shui Fung members were involved in violent confrontations with 14K members and were being investigated for offences that ranged from assault to homicide," Fisher said.