From The Depths Of The Sea: The ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow S.F. Chinatown Murders

Incarcerated San Francisco Chinatown Godfather Raymond (Shrimp Boy) Chow’s saw eight of his associates sentenced to prison time last week, two years after he was put behind bars on racketeering and murder charges. The 58-year old Chow allegedly ordered two gangland slayings of rivals – one of which he was convicted of – during his reign on the Chinatown streets in the 2000s and early 2010s. He’s serving a life sentence.

On February 27, 2006, Chow took control of the Chee Kung Tong by killing its leader and Chinatown underworld elder statesman Allen (Uncle Al) Leung. Then, on October 17, 2003, in an attempt to prevent losing his grip on the Hop Sing Tong, he’s said to have had renegade Hop Sing Tong enforcer Jimmy (The Gorilla) Kong and his wife slain. Kong and Chow had once be close friends, with Kong often acting as Chow’s main muscle. Chow was convicted of the Uncle Al Leung homicide at his 2016 trial.

Leung, 56, was gunned down in his Chinatown office, where he ran an import-export business buying and selling shark fins, a delicacy at Asian weddings. Chow had tried to extort $125,000 from Leung and when Leung refused to bend to Chow’s demands, Chow had the Chee Kung Tong headquarters shot up in a drive-by shooting and vandalized with spray paint. Leung aided the FBI with its investigation into the shooting and vandalism, pointing the finger at Chow as who was responsible.

Chow bragged to an undercover FBI agent about killing Leung.

“Even back then with Allen Leung, when I’m talking to him, I tell him one time, I don’t like people enough to give them a second time…you fuck around, you gone. I tell you one time. If you don’t hear me, that’s it.”

The 51-year old Jimmy Kong and his wife, Cynthia Chen, were found murdered execution style inside a minivan parked on the side of the road in Mendocino, California. A feared drug dealer and strong arm in Chinatown circles, Jimmy the Gorilla was a prime suspect in the Uncle Al Leung hit, viewed by authorities as most likely the triggerman in the high-profile slaying. He and Chow started feuding after Kong made it known he intended to seize power in the Hop Sing Tong.

Although Chow was the “Dragonhead” of the Chee Kung Tong, he also exerted significant influence in the Hop Sing Tong, too. As a young gangster in Chinatown in the 1970s, Chow was the leader of the Hop Sing Boys, a “JV” Chinese mafia and gang of teenage thugs loyal to the Hop Sing Tong.

Tensions between Chow and Kong grew deeper when Kong began engaging in an extramarital affair with a close friend of Chow’s wife. Chow and Kong had engaged in a heated verbal altercation at a Chinatown nightclub in 2011, the same year Kong was voted off the Hop Sing Tong’s board of directors. In the months preceding his and his wife’s murder, Kong had gone into hiding in Los Angeles.