| Founded | 1967; 59 years ago (1967) |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States |
| Years active | 1967–1994 |
| Territory | Chinatown |
| Ethnicity | Cantonese andTaishanese[1] |
| Membership(est.) | 100[2] |
| Activities | Drug trafficking, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, assault and murder[2] |
| Allies | Hip Sing Association |
| Rivals | Born to Kill[2] Ghost Shadows[2] |
| Notable members | Michael Chen Johnny Eng |
| Flying Dragons | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 飛龍幫 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 飞龙帮 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
TheFlying Dragons, also known asFDS, was aChinese American street gang prominent in New York City'sChinatown from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Formed in 1967 by immigrants primarily fromHong Kong, they were affiliated with theHip Sing Tong. During the 1980s, the gang often engaged in bloody turf wars with the newerGhost Shadows gang. Their activities includedextortion,kidnapping,murder,racketeering, andillegal gambling. The gang moved heavily intoheroin trafficking after theItalian-AmericanMafia lost the trade as a result of thePizza Connection prosecutions in the mid-1980s.
Similar to thetriads of China and theyakuza ofJapan, the Flying Dragons were composed primarily of members of a single ethnicity. For a time, in comparison to Western gangs, this allowed organizations such as the Flying Dragons to remain relatively impenetrable by police outside of their homelands.
The Flying Dragons allegedly maintained significant operations acrossChinatowns in the United States and in Hong Kong.[3] Much like other gangs, the Flying Dragons were heavily involved in the illegal drug trade, including heroin.
Flying Dragons leader Johnny Eng, also known as "Onionhead", was charged and convicted in 1992 of masterminding an international heroin importing scheme. Federal prosecutors alleged evidence against Eng including 300 pounds of heroin shipped to New York in stuffed animals, strapped to couriers, and sealed in steel machines used to wash bean sprouts.
In 1994, in what law-enforcement officials called a major blow to the largest and last of the traditional criminal gangs in Chinatown, 33 suspected members of the Flying Dragons were indicted on federal racketeering charges.[4] Sources described these charges as three murders, 12 attempted murders, heroin trafficking, illegal gambling, arson, extortion, and robberies that stretched from Manhattan into Brooklyn and Queens.
While the Flying Dragons' current leadership is unknown, the most well-known boss of the gang wasJohnny "Onionhead" Eng (also known as Machinegun Johnny). His notable tenure as leader is estimated to have lasted from a rise to power in the early 1980s to his incarceration in the 1990s.
Eng is widely believed to have first emigrated from Hong Kong to theUnited States in the early 1970s, aged around 13. Several sources agree that Eng took over the Flying Dragons in 1983 after the murder of his predecessorMichael Chen in the spring of that year. Nicknamed "The Scientist" for his cool and calm demeanor, Chen was killed in the doorway of the Hip Sing credit union, suffering a total of 14 gunshots, including four rounds fired into his eyes.
The Vietnamese Flying Dragons were a former branch of the Flying Dragons gang that consisted of primarily Vietnamese members. One former members,David Thai, a Vietnamese refugee who joined the gang in 1983, decided to leave it in 1987 after being disaffected by the lower status of the members consigned to this particular branch of the gang, who were mostly viewed as "coffee boys" and ordered to carry out those crimes that carried stiff penalties such as robbery and murder, and were excluded from the main gang's more lucrative activities such as drug dealing. David Thai later built his own gang that rivalled the Flying Dragons, calledBorn to Kill, which began to compete with the Flying Dragons and the Ghost Shadows for control and territory over Chinatown.[5][6][7]
The Flying Dragons have their roots in Hong Kong and historically maintained operations there. They have also been allegedly linked to criminal activities in parts of Canada and Australia.
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