Scotland triads under the scanner as new probe launched into Chinese businessman's murder

Reports last month of a new probe into the 30-year-old unsolved murder of a Chinese businessman in Glasgow brought back memories of a bygone age.

As the awe of Chinese economic might has grown, triad violence in Glasgow seems to have fallen off the radar. But a trawl of the archives reveals that a couple of decades ago local newspaper the was alarmed by the criminal goings-on in Garnethill, the Scottish city's Chinatown.

"The triads trade in fear. And traitors are swallowed up by the jaws of the dragon," the tabloid wrote in 1996, of a triad recruitment drive. Readers may be amused by the colourful way the used to report criminal activity in Garnethill but - while the paper did perhaps sensationalise matters - the log of turf battles and tit-for-tat choppings spoke for itself.

The killing of Philip Wong on October 9, 1985, is one of the city's most gruesome cold cases. The 48-year-old businessman was hacked to death on Rose Street, in Garnethill, by three men armed with machetes, having just left the mahjong gambling den that he ran.

It is believed Wong, a father of three and a leading light among Glasgow's then 5,000-strong Chinese community, acted as a "white paper fan", or business adviser, for the Shui Fong triad group in Britain. He was hit after refusing to trade a share of his Chinese video rental business with the Wo Shing Wo triad group.