Peter Chong

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Peter Chong (莊炳強^[1]) is a prisoner convicted of racketeering and extortion, described by prosecutors as the former leader of the Wo Hop To syndicate in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is serving 11 1/2 years, including over three years for an overturned criminal conviction for involvement in a plot to hire the murder of Bike Ming, boss of the Boston Ping On organization. Although the murder for hire conviction was overturned in 2005 by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals due to a lack of monetary payment to the killers, evidence of proof of involvement was taken to support additional prison time for the racketeering charge.^[2] Prior to the appellate decision, the 2003 criminal trial had sentenced him to 15 years for conspiring to contract a murder, participating in a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization, and several counts of extortion.^[3]

Now in his early 60s, Chong came to the U.S. from Hong Kong in 1982, ostensibly to start a Chinese opera company, but was accused in court documents of becoming the boss of the Wo Hop To (和合桃) crime syndicate in Northern California, a gang involved in loan sharking and extorting protection money from restaurants and gambling dens. Prosecutors alleged that the plot to murder Bike Ming was part of a plan with Wayne Kwong and Raymond Kwok Chow to form an umbrella organization called Tien Ha Wui ("Whole Earth Association"), that would dominate crime in Chinatowns throughout the U.S.^[3] He fled to Hong Kong days before his indictment in 1992, but was extradited to the U.S. in 2000.^[2]