"The police are scared": Is a triad gang war underway in London?
Plus: The end of the Friday night post-work drink in central London, and your chance to live in a church tower near London Bridge.
Last week London Centric’s exclusive video of men defacing a residential London street with red paint as part of what appears to be a Chinese organised crime gang war received widespread coverage and was at one point leading the homepage of the Times.
Reporting like this will always be at the heart of what we do, but it takes time and costs money. As ever, if you want to read agenda-setting investigations about the capital then they will be available first to paying subscribers.
Today we hear from the ordinary Londoners caught up in the violence, their concerns about a potential triad gang war over suspected brothels in the capital, and the women affected by this — while asking whether the austerity-hit Metropolitan Police has the specialist resources to confront it.
Scroll down to read today’s story.
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The death of Friday night post-work drinks.
Walk past London’s pubs on a Thursday night and you’ll see them overflowing with people having a pint with colleagues. And on Friday morning you might notice people being a bit worse for wear as they dial in from home on that morning’s Teams call.
Research by the Centre for Cities think tank has shown how this trend is affecting the capital’s pub trade. The light green line shows the days when city centre workers spent money in pubs pre pandemic and the dark green line shows which days of the week they spend it post pandemic. Working from home has turned Thursday into the new Friday, a reality also seen in Transport for London’s passenger data.
Despite this, London remains a relative anomaly in that people are still going out at all after work. Other major cities in the UK have seen a general collapse in post-work drinking across the whole working week. And while London’s commuters have also cut back on buying food near their workplaces during the week, the research found that they haven’t reallocated the money to local independent cafes near their homes. Instead, they’ve increased spending on groceries, meaning the big work from home winners are suburban supermarkets.
More financial trouble at the London Standard? Last month all its journalists were ordered to send in suggestions for encouraging people to pick up its print edition, such as offering a free electric car or flat to readers. Since then, according to sources at the news outlet, Lord Lebedev’s managers told regular freelance staff they might not have any work in April, giving them just a week’s notice to find alternative employment. Then, having backtracked and found some money for the next few weeks, the same staff are waiting to hear if they will have any work in May.
Preposterous property of the week.
Ever fancied living in a church tower next to London Bridge station? For a mere £4,000 a month you can rent a two-bed flat across five floors, complete with a spiral staircase and a roof terrace.
The property is in the converted shell of St Thomas's Church, built in 1707, and appears to be currently occupied by an Aston Villa fan. There’s not much in the way of privacy but if you’ve ever wanted to shower next to Europe’s oldest surviving operating theatre, this is your chance.
London Centric investigates: Why aren’t police taking on the capital’s triad gangs?
By Jim Waterson and Rachel Rees
Residents of a London street repeatedly targeted in a wave of “red paint attacks” have accused the police of shying away from confronting a Chinese gang war they believe is taking place in the capital.
London Centric has pieced together at least a dozen incidents across the city, sometimes accompanied by violent hammer attacks, in which a gang has thrown red paint and motor oil over properties before writing the word “brothel” on walls. Leading criminologist Oliver Chan said the intimidation tactic has its roots in Chinese triad gangs enforcing debt repayments, while footage obtained by this publication showed one set of attackers speaking Mandarin with accents from mainland China.
David McKelvey, a former Met police officer who specialises in investigating organised crime gangs in the UK, told London Centric it “might just be the beginning of a gang war where people try to take power”. He warned that the Met, after rounds of austerity-led cuts, lacks specialist knowledge of the capital’s Chinese-language criminal scene which is run by rival ancient groups, known as triads.
Neighbours of one street in West Hampstead said they repeatedly raised concerns for the welfare of women living in a suspected brothel on their road when homes along their street were covered in red paint and had windows smashed on multiple nights in late 2023. Out of desperation the local residents paid for a private investigator to go undercover in the property to gather evidence that it was operating as an illegal brothel.
"I think the police are scared," said one local resident, who had tried to contact them. "The police don't seem to be interested in the triads.”
“It’s a grey area.”
The flat in West Hampstead was occupied by a man and woman who told neighbours they were a couple from Hong Kong, along with multiple other women. One resident, who like others asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said at least three women were living in the flat and that all claimed to be students studying in the UK but could not speak English.
“There is always a concern that there may be sex trafficking,” said the neighbour, who emphasised he saw no hard evidence that the women were being held against their will.
They said police officers finally responded when a number of neighbouring properties showing visibly Jewish symbols were attacked with red paint, which prompted fears the incidents could be linked to anti-semitism. The Camden New Journal reported at the time that police had contacted the flat’s landlord who said the property was not a brothel.
“There’s a real gap in legislation because the actual thing of prostitution isn’t illegal, it’s the soliciting and the pimping which is illegal,” one police officer told the newspaper at the time. “It’s a grey area.”
“The guy running the brothel got beaten up.”
When the West Hampstead property was targeted the final time with red paint, the man living in the suspected brothel ran out of the property and confronted the “red paint gang” on the street.
Multiple neighbours said the gang then attacked the man with hammers, while video seen by London Centric shows the alleged attackers getting into a red car with a clearly visible numberplate. Residents passed this footage to the police, one neighbour said, but she had not heard of any response. Shortly afterwards the flat was left empty and all the residents moved out.
"The only reason it stopped was the guy running the brothel got beaten up,” claimed one resident.
McKelvey, the former Met police officer, now runs a private investigation business called TM Eye specialising in investigating organised Chinese crime in the UK. He said the triads operating in the capital are a very sophisticated network which rejects outsiders: “Having spent most of my career fighting organised crime they are the most organised I’ve seen.”
He said the groups are heavily involved in the illegal manufacturing of fake cigarettes, the importation of fentanyl, as well as human trafficking and slavery offences. He described “a very structured network” where money flows back to China, often using the WeChat platform: “You’ve got a perfect storm of organised criminals doing low-risk, high-reward crimes. They’re almost left to get on with it.”
The Met did not respond to a request for comment.
“The police’s knowledge of what’s going on is not up to date.”
McKelvey said seized phones often show triad gang members are offering prostitution alongside fake cigarettes and cannabis. But he was surprised by the suggestion that Chinese gangs would be turning on each other on the streets of London and across the UK: “We’ve seen no violence or weapons in the premises we’ve raided. Saying that, you know what criminals are like, you could see a new kid on the block pushing his luck.”
He said the recent influx of former Hong Kong residents into the capital had changed the balance of the community but triads operating in the UK tend to eschew violence in favour of highly-profitable but low-profile crimes that don’t hit police performance targets.
The residents of West Hampstead said they were concerned for the welfare of the women who used to lived in the alleged brothel and the potential links to organised crime, especially amid police inaction. Although the paint attacks stopped when the targeted residents left the flat, the man who lived in the property remains in the area, they said, insisting that they had seen him since in local supermarkets.
Emily Chalke, the founder of the anti-trafficking charity Ella’s, said she did not know the specifics of these incidents but described how trafficked women can be kept in London’s brothels against their will: “A lot of women say they’re told ‘no one will help, you will get in trouble if you tell anyone’. If you’ve been brought here and you’re illegal then you don’t know the consequences. People are really trapped on all levels because who do you go to for help and who do you trust?”
She said her organisation sometimes found police reluctant to intervene in such cases whether due to “lack of resource” or “feeling it’s better not to rock the boat”.
Chalke said a woman recently came to one of her charity’s homes after neighbours called the police four times due to her screams and the violence she was experiencing: “She was being exploited and yet each time she wanted somewhere safe to go there was nowhere — either you come with us to the station or you stay.”
McKelvey, the former Met police detective, said the “policing is moving away from specialist crime” and sending more officers to boroughs to deal with domestic violence and rapes. “All that’s going to happen is they’ll leave a vacuum, the criminals will commit more serious organised crime, that will filter down and you’ll get more street crime.”
He added: “The Met used to have a squad that dealt with Chinese crime and criminality but it’s long since disbanded — the police’s knowledge of what’s going on is not up to date.”
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The Cosa Nostra have been complaining for years about the poor quality of recruits nowadays - all the usual complaints that the older generations level at youth. Chief among these failings is a lack of moral fibre (bear with me) and that the punks nowadays roll at the first sign of trouble.
I suspect these North London actors likewise have nothing to do with WSW or 14K in the usual manner, but are trying to evoke the fear of the triad as a part of some petty extortion: amateurs trying to set up shop away from the traditional places of power. The Triad of the old days certainly wouldn't balk at bladework, as opposed to the crudity of a hammer. If anything the footage reminds me of Johnny Mak's glorious HK crime drama 'Long Arm of the Law', and I heartily recommend it. The epic finale is set in the long-unlamented Hak Nam aka The City of Darkness, and it's worth an evening of your time. If you're going to have a triad war, film it somewhere awesome.
A- for this report, dear boy, because you didn't give Asif his weekly beating. Everything else remains as ever, the paragon of fiercely intelligent journalism.
Red Lobster restaurant on Uxbridge Road covered in red paint overnight