This White Dude Was a Boss in the Chinese Mafia

They called him “Bac Guai,” or as the FBI translated it, White Devil. He was a kid who grew up in Dorchester, a hardscrabble Boston suburb, and played hockey like the other Irish Americans denizens and blue-collar workers who dominated the Charlestown and Southie locales. Boston is a town steeped in deep-rooted traditions, proud of its colonial history, sports teams, and even its crime legacy. But the man born John Willis, the “White Devil” who would become a crime boss for a sect of the Chinese Mafia, ended up loyal to a group of people far different from the Boston natives he grew up with.

Willis’s father left by the time he was two and his mother passed just after he turned 15. He had some relatives around town, but they didn’t take in the teenage orphan. Like any kid feeling hurt and alone, Willis looked for acceptance. When he didn’t find it from his own people, he gravitated towards a community that did. Surprisingly enough, that group was a Chinese gang called Ping On….(read more)

Source: VICE