What has former 14K triad boss ‘Broken Tooth’ Wan Kuok-koi been up to since leaving prison?
- Released from jail in 2012, the notorious Macau gangster was named alongside Carrie Lam in last year’s US Treasury sanctions as a ‘threat to global order’. Why?
Within weeks of his release from a Macau prison built specifically to hold him, triad boss Wan Kuok-koi, whose rise and fall in the 1990s made headlines around the world, was back in the game.
After walking out of jail on December 1, 2012, the man better known by his gangland nickname, “Broken Tooth’’ – and whose crimes include murder, car-bombing, arms smuggling, money laundering, human trafficking, the leadership of a criminal organisation and racketeering – was able to ease back into “acceptable’’ casino society in Macau.
No one was surprised he had returned to his literal old stomping grounds, but how he managed to set himself up as a “legitimate’’ businessman in several Asian countries remained a mystery.
It designated him “a leader of the 14K Triad, one of the largest Chinese organised crime organisations in the world”, and noted the 14K engages in “drug trafficking, illegal gambling, racketeering, human trafficking” as well as “bribery, corruption and graft […] including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gains, and corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources”.
