5T (gang)

5T
Founded Mid 1980s
Founder Founded by street kids in Sai gon former Republic of vietnam and also sprung up in United States, Tri Minh Tran rose to be the leader *
Founding location AustraliaCabramatta, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Years active 1985-1999
Territory Cabramatta
Ethnicity Vietnamese
Criminal activities Drug dealing, arms dealing, extortion, money laundering, home invasion, armed robbery
Allies Various street gangs
Rivals Various Asian street gangs

5T was a Vietnamese crime gang active in the Cabramatta and Bankstown area of Sydney, Australia, with sub groups and ex members living interstate, in the final two decades of the 20th century.

The Rise of 5T

5T rose from Cabramatta youths who came to Australia with their parents after the fall of the Republic of Vietnam. The 5T gang started forming in the mid-1980s. It stands for five Vietnamese words starting with T; 'Tình', 'Tiền', 'Tù', 'Tội' and 'Tự, which mean Love, Money, Prison, Punishment, Suicide in English. However, 5T also means 'tuổi trẻ thiếu tình thương' which roughly translates to 'childhood without love.' Gang members apparently were tattooed with the emblem consisting of a straight horizontal line and 5 joined vertical lines with members' first and family names starting with the letter T being the horizontal line on top of the name. Tri Minh Tran rose to leadership of the 5T gang by the age of 14 in 1989. He was born in Vietnam in 1975 and arrived in Australia at the age of 7 as a refugee. By the age of 11, he had been arrested for carrying a sawn-off shotgun and in the next couple of years was suspected of the murder of two rival gang members. One day the police heard a rumor about it but in fact it stopped happening.

The 5T gang became the dominant players in the Cabramatta heroin trade especially at street level. In January 1988, the Sydney Morning Herald warned: "Criminal gangs in the Vietnamese community are increasingly heavily armed, are moving into drugs and gambling, establishing links with Australian crime figures, and becoming involved in standover rackets in their own community". John Newman first warned of the Vietnamese gangs including the 5T in 1989 in NSW State Parliament saying: "The Asian gangs involved don't fear our laws. But there's one thing they do fear and that's possible deportation back to the jungles of Vietnam, because that's where, frankly, they belong." Newman campaigned strongly against the crime gangs in Vietnam and would receive regular death threats before his murder.[1]

Breakup

Tran was murdered in 1995, this sparked a power struggle within the organization with another leader being assassinated. There was an escalation of violence in 1999 as rival mobs the Four Aces and Madonna's boys (breakaway groups of the 5T) challenged the 5T leading to an increase in the murder rate in Cabramatta. This gang warfare eventually led to the NSW Parliament establishing a Parliamentary Inquiry. During this inquiry in 2001, Tim Priest, a police officer based at Cabramatta warned of an upsurge of gang violence in Southwestern Sydney including Vietnamese, Chinese and Middle Eastern gangs. He was criticised for his comments by then NSW Education Minister John Aquilina and Reba Meagher, Newman's successor as Member for Cabramatta, who labelled him a "disgruntled detective" before being forced to apologise.

The successors of the 5T include the Four Aces and Madonna's Boys (Madonna) [Ro Van Le] the leader & namesake of the gang was subsequently murdered outside a western sydney pub in 1999 shortly after being released from Prison.[2] As well as Black and Red Dragon gangs continue to remain active in the drug trade and other rackets in Sydney and Melbourne. the Red and Black Dragons have tried to recruit members from local high schools and are suspected of being an offshoot of the Big Circle Gang.[3] The NSW Police Force had established a task force in 2002 under Dave Madden to address the new triads. Victoria Police Asian Squad, have found affiliated and ex members still remain quietly active in Melbourne at the end of the last deacde but since 2006 the Victoria's Asian Crime Squad has been disbanded and now is under the organised crime squad due to the decrease of Asian gang's and Asian based crime in the state.[4] suburbs such as Richmond, Springvale, St Albans and Sunshine Footscray The Bourke Street Arcade and even Box Hill were the states Hubs for drug dealing and crime at the peak of the end of the last decade and since as well as New south wales, now vanished.[5] The Victoria Police operation Fluid as well as others have proved successful in countering Asian gang-related crime and disrupting and disbanding of "fluid" type Gangs.

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/16/1021544049612.html
  3. ↑ http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/03/23/24gangs.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-the-gangs-of-melbourne-have-moved-police-and-community-groups-to-search-for-answers-20120817-24dzt.html
  5. ↑ http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/dont-try-to-ms-around-with-our-top-cop-detective-superintendent-debbie-wallace/story-fni0cx12-1226826552301

Footnotes

  1. ^ 1997 Four Corners Op. Cit.
  2. ^ Sydney Morning Herald "Police warn on Viet gangs" 2 January 1988 cited in Parliamentary Joint Committee Report.Parliament reported on Four Corners Op Cit.
  3. ^ Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence Australian Drug Intelligence Assessment 1993 page 40 cited in Parliamentary Committee Report Op Cit
  4. ^ NSW Crime Statistics cited in Joint Parliamentary Committee Report Op. Cit.
  5. ^ Sun Herald Op. Cit.