The attorney representing alleged Chinatown gang boss Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow says that the FBI entrapped his client, and “wined and dined” him using “millions of dollars, liquor and cigarettes seized in other cases,” the Associated Press reports. Chow was indicted in March, together with State Sen. Leland Yee and several others, in a complex prosecution involving allegations that included bribery and gun-running.
Lawyer J. Tony Serra told the AP that “much of the government’s case against Chow, Yee and the others is being driven by FBI operatives who were loaded with millions of dollars, were ‘wining and dining’ their targets with $250 shots of liquor at high-end restaurants and were making persistent offers to break the law.”
Chow had previously made a name for himself as a reformed gangster doing good work in communities in the Bay Area.
The FBI sting brought down State Sen. Yee, who allegedly took bribes to raise money for his local and state campaigns. The Contra Costa Times‘s Aaron Kinney and Jessica Calefati report that Yee is accused of having shaped particular pieces of state legislation to benefit those who gave him money since 2011.