Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow

Raymond Kwok-Cheung Chow (born December 31, 1959), nicknamed "Shrimp Boy", is a Hong Kong-born felon with ties to a San Francisco Chinatown street gang and an organized crime syndicate, including the American branch of the Hong Kong-based triad Wo Hop To and the Hop Sing Boys.

Chow was born on December 31, 1959, in Hong Kong, then a British colony.

He is of Taishanese descent, and had three brothers: two older and one younger.

His nickname "Shrimp Boy" was reportedly bestowed by his grandmother, due to his small stature.

His father owned a barbershop, but lost his business to gambling debts when Chow was eight.

The family moved into a single room shack for a year, until it burned down.

On the program Gangland, Chow said he first joined a gang in his native Hong Kong when he was nine years old.

After joining the gang, he intervened in a fight involving his gang mentor by striking his mentor's opponent on the head with a knife, becoming a gang hero in the process.

Chow came to the United States with his parents at the age of 17, and dropped out of high school after approximately one month when he became involved with the Hop Sing Tong gang.

One year after arriving in the city, Chow was involved in the infamous Golden Dragon massacre in 1977, dining at the restaurant with other Hop Sing Boys members.

In the wake of the 1977 shooting, the Wah Ching were ascendant and the Hop Sing were chased out of San Francisco.

Chow was first convicted of a crime in the United States in 1978, for an armed robbery in Chinatown, San Francisco which occurred on February 17, 1978.

A victim identified Chow as one of a trio of robbers who had held up a group of 23 at a meeting of the Chinese-American Institute of Engineers.

When one of the victims was being returned from the Hall of Justice, he recognized Chow's distinctive jade ring and medallion.

Chow received an 11-year sentence for the 1978 robbery, of which he served 7 years and 4 months.

During his first stint in prison, Chow studied to become a deep-sea welder, but his education was interrupted by a prison riot and he turned to dealing heroin inside San Quentin instead.

Chow has been married twice: to Anna Ma (1980–86) and Cindy Szeto (1990–92).

He was released on April 30, 1985.

After being released, Chow stopped at a noodle shop on his way back to San Francisco; he convinced the prostitutes outside to work for him and set up an escort service.

One year later, in 1986, Chow was charged with 28 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, mayhem, and illegal possession of a firearm, related to the shooting of David Quach, a Wah Ching gang member, at the Golden Key Restaurant in San Francisco.

Quach had been in an altercation with Chow's sister-in-law, Karen Ma. Chow was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to serve three years in prison.

He was released in 1989.

After his second release, Chow said he tried to renounce crime and found work as a bagger in a Daly City grocery store, but he left that job when his boss became suspicious after receiving a phone call from the SFPD gang task force.

His marriage to Szeto was not registered, but they had a reception at the Empress of China restaurant at the top of the China Trade Center, and it ended when he was arrested in 1992.

In 2006, Chow became the leader of the Ghee Kung Tong (CKT), a Chinese fraternal association based in San Francisco, California.

After they met in 2008 until his arrest, Chow lived with Alicia Lo, her 11-year-old daughter, and two dogs.

Chow had publicly renounced his former life of crime, and Lo, a UC Berkeley graduate without Chow's criminal ties, believed she was gradually rehabilitating Chow by introducing him to mainstream American culture.

Meanwhile, Chow was teaching Lo Chinese culture.

Chow wrote an autobiography entitled Shrimp Boy: The Sun of the Underworld (2011); the title was later updated to Shrimp Boy: Life of Crime, Violence and Redemption Inside the Chinatown Underworld (2013).

In 2014, Chow along with 28 other defendants including former California State Senator Leland Yee, were indicted for racketeering, money laundering, and a host of other alleged criminal activities.

Leland Yee pleaded guilty to racketeering in July 2015 for conspiring with his campaign fundraiser to defeat donation limits through money laundering.

Despite initial press releases, Chow was not indicted in a racketeering conspiracy with Leland Yee.

Chow was indicted in a racketeering conspiracy which alleged that he oversaw a criminal faction of the Ghee Kung Tong.

Chow is the only co-defendant of 29 to publicly profess his innocence and ask for an expedited jury trial.

His trial began on November 9, 2015.

On January 8, 2016, Chow was found guilty on all 162 charges, including one count of murder.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 20 years.

The manuscript remains unpublished under a restraining order served to Lo in August 2016 after Chow was sentenced to two life terms in prison; no one may publish or profit from it until the government recovers approximately $255,000 in seized assets and fines.

Chow stated he carried a letter of introduction from the leader of his gang in Hong Kong when he emigrated to San Francisco, joining the Hop Sing Boys.

In an early incident, when he was 17, he was dropped off at a home in Hillsborough and was told to beat the resident to send a message from La Cosa Nostra; he finished the beating with the help of a two-by-four in two minutes and earned $3,000.