Ghost Shadows

The Ghost Shadows or GSS (traditional Chinese: 鬼影幫; simplified Chinese: 鬼影帮; Jyutping: gwai2 jing2 bong1) was a Chinese American street gang that was prominent in New York City's Chinatown from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s.

Ghost Shadows

Founded	1971[1]
Founding location	New York City
Years active	1970s–1990s
Territory	New York City, Houston Texas, Providence, Rhode Island
Ethnicity	Cantonese and Taishanese[2]
Criminal activities	Racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, assault, murder, armed robbery and kidnapping
Allies	On Leong Tong, Big Circle Gang, Tiny Rascal Gang[3]
Rivals	Flying Dragons

History

Formed in 1971 by immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong, the gang was affiliated with the On Leong Tong. They adopted the colors black and white as their clothing to match the name of the set. Throughout the 1980s, the gang was often engaged in bloody turf wars with other Chinatown gangs such as the older Flying Dragons, affiliated with Hip Sing Tong and the Division Street Boys affiliated with Tung On Association.

Their activities included extortion, kidnapping, murder, racketeering, drug trafficking and illegal gambling. The Ghost Shadows' influence was widespread, having links to Chinatowns in other cities, as well as links to Sicilian-American Mafia families. The organization is defunct due to Federal RICO crackdowns during the 1990s.

Members

Wing Yeung Chan

Wing Yeung Chan (born Jan 6, 1945) was president of On Leong Tong and for a decade the leader of the Ghost Shadows. Charged with murder and racketeering, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.^[4][5]

Applehead

Shui Ping Wu (born 1956), also known as Applehead (pronounced Apo with silent-L), was one of the original founders of Ghost Shadows and a leader of breakaway factions of Ghost Shadows^[6] Bayard Boys during the late 1970s, up to his indictments on RICO statutes in the mid-1980s.

In 1977, Wu was charged with four others for extorting money from a restaurant employee in Montgomery County, MD.^[7] He pled guilty in a re-trial in 1983, suspending the final few years of his original 5 year sentence.^[8]

China Mac

Raymond Yu (born 1981), a rapper known professionally as China Mac, joined the Ghost Shadows gang at age 12. He was born in Brooklyn to Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, and lived in a group home from age 8. As a gang member he says he dealt drugs, committed robberies, and served as a lookout at gambling houses. He served 3 years in jail for his gang crimes starting in 2000 at age 18. In 2003, shortly after release, he shot another rapper in an altercation and was imprisoned for 11 years.^[9][10]

Yu later built a career as an entertainer. He became an activist against anti-Asian racism, notably in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic racist incidents in the U.S.^[9][10]