Agents of Chile’s Carabineros OS7 anti-drug division apprehended two Chinese men in Chile’s central region believed to be members China’s transnational criminal organization Fujian Bang. The men were guarding two large marijuana plantations in two climate-controlled and irrigation-controlled industrial greenhouses when the arrests took place in mid-April, Chilevisión reported.
While the Chinese mafia has made inroads into Latin America before, its presence in Chile appears to be more permanent, InSight Crime, an organization dedicated to studying organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean indicated in a late 2023 report. Authorities located the highly technological and automated greenhouses in rural areas of the O’Higgins region, 30 minutes away from each other, where the gang cyclically cultivated thousands of plants.
“In Chile, the Fujian Bang has been present for at least five years, confirmed since the end of 2019 with investigations in the southern area of Chile, where they pursued the installation of sheds with high technology for hidden crops,” Luis Toledo, Chilean expert in organized crime and former director of the National Drug Unit of Chile’s Attorney General’s Office, told Diálogo on May 20. “The gang’s illicit businesses include the production, cultivation, and sale of marijuana; in addition to human trafficking and arms trafficking, although in the latter case they are not for sale, but only for the protection of their businesses.”
In both facilities raided, the Chinese gang members carried out the entire marijuana cultivation process, including the installation and operation of the electrical systems and lighting and administration of the irrigation and fertilizer processes, the police reported. That made them true experts in the field, investigators said.
“One of those arrested had been in Africa and the other one had been in Europe, installing and operating the same systems; but there are many people involved in this crime in our region,” Osvaldo Yáñez, deputy prosecutor of the O’Higgins region in charge of the investigation, told Chilevisión. “It’s the same hallmark of the gang in previous operations in Chile and around the world.”
“The Bang group is one of the most prominent criminal outfits to emerge from the southeastern province of Fujian,” Insight Crime indicated. “Due to its geographic position and trade links, waves of Fujianese immigrants have migrated around the world, with a heavy presence in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, the United States, and Canada […]. This diaspora has allowed Fujianese organized crime to set up operations in different countries, either running these internally or collaborating with other Chinese Triads […].”
European connection
In Spain, the National Police arrested four members of the gang during Operation Cathay. The criminals were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and fined more than $350,000 each for turning the northern city of Gijón into a center of operations for large-scale marijuana cultivation, Spanish newspaper El Comercio reported on May 20. The gang had set up two industrial areas as marijuana factories for export to various European countries, carrying out cultivation, processing, weighing, and packaging activities, where three Chinese nationals worked as forced laborers.
“Everything revolves around the production and trade in industrial quantities of marijuana, the gang is very oriented to that task,” Toledo said. “The operators do not flaunt great luxuries, they have a very low profile, they tend to go unnoticed as workers, they are not related to acts of violence and their link between peers is given by the sale of marijuana and large-scale production.”
Criminal history
In April 2023 Yu Caixin, one of the main financiers of the Bang’s marijuana production operations in 26 different locations, who served as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the city of Temuco, southern Chile, was arrested on charges of drug production and trafficking, Chilean news network Bio-Bío reported. Earlier, in September 2021, the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) dismantled a marijuana production operation linked to the Bang, arresting 13 people, Chilean news site Emol reported.
A parallel criminal investigation, opened in 2020, found that a series of indoor marijuana plantations and entertainment venues were owned by families originally from Fujian province, part of the Bang clan.
Saved by translation
In all the countries where the Bang have a presence, authorities have mentioned the challenges faced during investigations because of the language barrier, as members of the clan only speak — or pretend to only speak — the Fujian dialect. In addition, clan members have very fragmented information. According to former officials such as Luis Toledo, the detainees are well aware that this factor complicates and slows down investigations.
“They are aware that in Chile certain documents must be incorporated for the proper information of the accused in the oral proceedings. So, they take advantage of those guarantees,” said Toledo. “They know the problems derived from the application of procedural rules for the benefit of those who are accused in a case, and through the language barrier they complicate the investigation, because all their telephone or virtual communications are in the language or dialect they have chosen.”
“In addition, it is very difficult in all investigations against the Fujian Bang to find interpreters who are free of any kind of connection with organized crime,” Toledo added. “The translators at the embassy are not completely trustworthy either. Either because they are afraid, because they may be close to the people charged, or out of loyalty to their country.”