The Big Circle Boys is one of the major Chinese Organized Crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

 syndicates. Its Chinese designation is Tai Huen Chai (大圈仔). It was featured in the Alex Rider

Alex Rider

Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by British author Anthony Horowitz about a 14-15 year old spy named Alex Rider. The series is aimed primarily at young adults. Nine novels have been published to date, as well as three graphic novels, three short stories and a supplementary book...

 novel Skeleton Key

Skeleton Key (novel)

Skeleton Key is the Third book in the Alex Rider series written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The book was released in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2002 and in the United States on April 28, 2003.-Plot:...

. It was created by corrupt members of the Red Guards (China)

Red Guards (China)

Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians, mostly students and other young people in the People's Republic of China , who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.-Origins:...

 who fled to Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 as refugees from Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

's Cultural Revolution

Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...

.

In 2008, building on extensive literature and interview data, Alex Chung, a scholar from Oxford focused on the Big Circle Boys and the case of the ‘Flaming Eagles’, a group of some ten associations of the Big Circle Boys, the primary activity of which was the smuggling and trafficking of heroin from the ‘Golden Triangle’ region to the United States. Chung argued that the Big Circle Boys is a loosely affiliated group of gangs rather than a unified criminal group. Members often operate in autonomous mini-pyramids with small cells, engaging in illegal activities independently and co-operating only when necessary.

Since 2000, there have not been many reports on the Big Circle Boys, thus it seems extremely difficult to obtain the clear map of its criminal activities worldwide in recent years. Hong Kong and Western enforcement agencies currently tend to label criminals originating from Guangzhou or other parts of China as 'Asian criminals' in a generic manner instead of calling them as ‘Big Circle Boys’. In the past 10 years, more and more Chinese immigrants from different provinces can be found in Hong Kong and Western Societies, which seems to be the main concern of Western and Hong Kong agencies to label the Big Circle Boys in a generic manner.

The Big Circle Gang is also believed to be linked to the shooting of Hong Chao Huang in the upscale district of Shaughnessy in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, BC, Canada.

See also

• Criminal tattoos
• Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)
  Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)
  The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas. It is an area of around that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia: Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent and Pakistan, it has been one of the most...
  
  
• Triad (underground societies)
• Wah Ching
  Wah Ching
  Wah Ching is a Chinese American Triad Society and street gang also known as "Dub C" originating in San Francisco during the early 1960s. At the time, Wah Ching was organized into one enormous gang...
  
  

External links

• Chinese Organized Crime and Illegal Alien Trafficking: Humans as a Commodity (US Department of State)
• High-ranking Big Circle Boy killed in Vancouver (Global TV)

Raid revealed extortion gang's strength (Sydney Morning Herald)

• Askmen