‘Shrimp Boy’ Found Guilty of Murder

On Friday, Chee Kung Tong leader Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, 56, was convicted of racketeering, murder, and other charges.

The murder charges stemmed from the 2006 murder of his Ghee Kung Tong predecessor, Allen Leung, which Chow orchestrated, and Chow’s solicitation of the murder of a member of the San Francisco street gang Hop Sing Tong, who wife was also murdered.

During the trial, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that  Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frenzen told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, “We have been able to link (Chow) to soliciting that murder,” referring to Leung’s murder. Frenzen added, “Mr. Chow did not take over the (tong) because of his business acumen. This was how he asserted power.”

SF Weekly reported that Chow admitted robbing engineers at gunpoint when he was 18, leading to eight years in prison, but later Chow presented himself as a reformed gangster, being feted by elitists in San Francisco.

Chow was a target of the FBI’s five-year undercover sting which also aided the charges of racketeering against State Senator Leland Yee and former San Francisco School Board president Keith Jackson.

Chow had protested that he gave up violence in 2003 or 2004 after three days of meditation, according to CBS San Francisco, asserting, “I changed myself … I told myself I’m not going to cross the line to any crimes. I’m not going to do anything illegal.”

Prosecutors argued that Chow’s gang trafficked in weapons, contraband cigarettes, and stolen liquor.