Reading this makes my city look like a long-running television series.

The federal investigation that snared state Sen. Leland Yee and 25 others in a wide-ranging racketeering and corruption case was triggered by the 2006 slaying of San Francisco businessman and tong leader Allen Leung.

Leung - who at the time was the head of the San Francisco-based Ghee Kung Tong or Chinese freemasons - was gunned down by a masked intruder at his Jackson Street import-export business as his wife looked on.

As one of their first acts in trying to solve the murder, San Francisco police and the FBI staked out the swearing-in of Leung's successor, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, according to the 137-page affidavit made public following Yee's arrest Wednesday. Chow was a local Chinatown mobster who three years earlier had been released from federal prison after snitching out his former crime boss.

Leung had told police before his death that Chow had been trying to extort $100,000 from him and that he feared for his life, law enforcement sources tell us....

Chow appeared to drive the point home himself when he marched through Chinatown in Leung's funeral parade dressed in white - rather than the usual mournful black.

As far back as 1977, police say, Chow was big enough to be the intended victim of gang warfare when five men opened fire on the legendary Golden Dragon restaurant, killing five and injuring 11 others in what was then the city's worst-ever massacre.


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Yee-case-started-in-2006-after-killing-of-5360255.php