Po­lice say the mur­der of Mar­aval busi­ness­man An­tho­ny Chen and the kid­nap­ping of restau­rant own­er Xue Hua Shan, who is still miss­ing, are linked, but the cas­es may nev­er be solved.Sus­pects were ex­ten­sive­ly ques­tioned and re­leased, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors have been un­able to make any break­throughs lead­ing to ar­rests.Shan, 31, was kid­napped a month ago, a few me­tres from her home at Sev­enth Street, Barataria. She is the own­er of Hap­py Gar­den Restau­rant lo­cat­ed on Main Road, St He­le­na.

A work­er at Japs Fried Chick­en, which is lo­cat­ed next to the restau­rant, said al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Shan was ab­duct­ed, her busi­ness place was closed.The work­er said all the Chi­nese work­ers at the restau­rant had not been seen since.In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they be­lieved the woman was dead and the prospects of find­ing her body were slim.But Chen's mur­der and Shan's kid­nap­ping paint a broad­er and dis­turb­ing pic­ture of or­gan­ised crime or­ches­trat­ed by what may ap­pear to be the rapid­ly in­creas­ing and far-reach­ing ten­ta­cles of Asian crim­i­nal gangs in T&T, po­lice sources said.

Front for rack­e­teer­ing

Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cials, many busi­ness­es, main­ly restau­rants and pri­vate mem­bers clubs, are fronts for "crime dens." They say some restau­rants which ap­pear to be or­di­nary food es­tab­lish­ments may be in­volved in oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, hid­den be­hind their kitchens and rows of din­ing ta­bles.Sev­er­al mem­bers' clubs, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cers from a Port-of-Spain based in­tel­li­gence unit, are fronts for a host of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing high-end pros­ti­tu­tion, gam­bling and even mo­tor car lar­ce­ny.Of­fi­cers re­ferred to an eat­ing es­tab­lish­ment in Port-of-Spain where the own­er was fin­gered as the head of a car steal­ing ring in west Trinidad.

Po­lice said young lo­cal men are be­ing hired to steal the cars and ve­hi­cles parked in front of or close to cer­tain busi­ness places are mon­i­tored as po­ten­tial tar­gets.They said it was very un­like­ly that a Chi­nese per­son would be a sus­pect in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly car theft, since they did not fall in­to the po­lice's nor­mal crim­i­nal pro­fil­ing. "It is high­ly un­like­ly that po­lice would sus­pect a Chi­nese man would be dri­ving around with a stolen car, but that is the in­for­ma­tion com­ing to us," po­lice said."Every­body be­lieves the Chi­nese have mon­ey and are do­ing their things le­git­i­mate­ly, but that is not al­ways the case," an of­fi­cer said.He said some three weeks ago, a Chi­nese na­tion­al, own­er of a restau­rant in St James, was de­tained for pos­ses­sion of a stolen lap­top com­put­er. The de­vice was tak­en out of the trunk of a stolen car.Be­cause the sus­pect "knew peo­ple," he was re­leased just as charges were about to be laid.

Lan­guage bar­ri­er prob­lem

One of the rea­sons why there are few ar­rests of Chi­nese na­tion­als sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in crime is the lan­guage bar­ri­er.Of­fi­cers from the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (CIU) say of­ten when a Chi­nese na­tion­al is de­tained, it is dif­fi­cult to gath­er in­for­ma­tion.An of­fi­cer said a re­quest first had to be made to the Chi­nese Em­bassy for an in­ter­preter, which could re­sult in a 24-hour de­lay.

In ad­di­tion, he said, the very cul­ture of the Chi­nese is to "keep things to them­selves."Of­fi­cers be­lieve that is why Chen's mur­der and Shan's kid­nap­ping may nev­er be solved."The Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty knows with­out a doubt what trig­gered these two crimes but no one is talk­ing, not even the busi­ness­man's fam­i­ly," the po­lice of­fi­cer said."They are not as­sist­ing us so how can we help them? They are keep­ing every­thing close to their chest. We, as law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, could on­ly do so much."Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Chen was a "heavy gam­bler" and who owed his as­so­ciates large debts. He fre­quent­ed a gam­bling den lo­cat­ed a stone's throw away from Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain.

The Vic­to­ri­an-style house is out­fit­ted with three elec­tron­ic iron gates. In­side, one of the bed­rooms has been con­vert­ed to a gam­bling room with ta­bles for pok­er and rum­my. The room is equipped with a buzzer and has an ex­it lead­ing to a kitchen at the back.The own­er of the prop­er­ty col­lects a "tax" off win­ning bets to keep the es­tab­lish­ment run­ning."The tax is al­so used for pro­vid­ing drinks and re­fresh­ment for guests who come to gam­ble," a po­lice source said."Chen used to fre­quent the house and would place huge sums on bets, from $10,000 and up...That's the kind of mon­ey these fel­las have."Po­lice said they had in­for­ma­tion that a high-rank­ing of­fi­cial of the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment fre­quent­ed the house.

Sub­has: I've heard aboutChi­nese mafia

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day said he had been "hear­ing about" a Chi­nese mafia op­er­at­ing in T&T."Yes, I have heard about the Chi­nese mafia and the is­sue is of con­cern," he said."But to say there is tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence-that's where the prob­lem lies but we will not sit idly by and al­low any sort of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties to run the coun­try."We will do every­thing in our pow­er to stamp it out."

High-lev­el in­for­ma­tion­can't be re­vealed-Ewats­ki

Asked whether there a Chi­nese mafia op­er­at­ing in T&T, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions Jack Ewats­ki said he would not make any "broad state­ments" about crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.He said it is al­so im­per­a­tive that the Po­lice Ser­vice not re­veal "high-lev­el in­for­ma­tion" to the gen­er­al pub­lic."We are out there do­ing the best that we can," Ewats­ki said, adding that any type of crime would gen­er­at­ed con­cern.

He as­sured that his of­fi­cers were do­ing all in their pow­er to solve Chen's mur­der and Shan's kid­nap­ping."We are con­cerned about any type of crime that is com­mit­ted by any­body and we will deal with it at all lev­els," he said."Our in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers are work­ing very hard and we are look­ing at all an­gles and mo­tives for Chen's mur­der and to solve this as quick­ly as pos­si­ble."He said he would not com­ment on spec­u­la­tion re­gard­ing who and why some one want­ed the busi­ness­man mur­dered but ap­pealed to peo­ple who could as­sist the po­lice with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward.Crime stop­pers has of­fered a re­ward of $100,000 for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to Shan's safe re­lease.

Da­ta on Chi­nese na­tion­als charged be­tween 2010 and 2011

2010

Crime Peo­ple charged

Ma­li­cious dam­age 1

At­tempt­ed mur­der 1

Kid­nap­ping 1

Rob­bery 1

Nar­cot­ic Pos­ses­sion 1

Re­ceiv­ing stolen goods 1

2011

Lar­ce­ny dwelling house 1

Nar­cot­ic of­fence 1

Ap­pa­ra­tus pos­ses­sion 1

Source: Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice

Am­bas­sador re­sponds

Chi­nese Am­bas­sador to T&T Yang Youm­ing, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the T&T Guardian about the re­ports, said the Em­bassy had no knowl­edge that na­tion­als of his coun­try were in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in this coun­try.The am­bas­sador made it clear that his re­sponse to the re­ports was that of the em­bassy and not his."The em­bassy has no knowl­edge of any­thing you men­tioned...This is a mat­ter for the po­lice and im­mi­gra­tion," he said. "We have not had any re­ports on the is­sue from the po­lice or the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty through the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, as this is the stan­dard prac­tice."The Em­bassy wish­es to re­it­er­ate that the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment is against il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion, and is work­ing to­geth­er with oth­er coun­tries in the in­ter­na­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion of deal­ing with the is­sue."