Codes of the Underworld by Gambetta Diego

Author:Gambetta, Diego
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press

IDENTIFICATION

Conventional signals are used by organizations to assist in the identification problem, namely to make members who have not met before identifiable to each other. Any criminal organization or network that grows in size beyond the number of people who can know each other personally needs to develop and coordinate identification signals. Conventional signals with this purpose have been applied for specific operations. On May 1990, for instance, “a King Yee triad boss in Kwun Tong succeeded in mobilizing 700 men to try and drive away other prospective buyers from queuing at the sales office to buy new residential flats…. To identify the people of theirs who were hired to disrupt the queue, the King Yee triad leader asked his 700 men to wear a white glove on their right hand.”28

Such artifices are useful not only for criminals. According to Marek Kaminski, in order to recognize each other

secret police agents during Solidarity demonstrations in Poland would use “disposable” conventional signals. According to my reconstruction, they were informed shortly before a demonstration what the signal for this particular demonstration was, and next they were given the required accessories and information. In one case, it was a scarf of particular sort, in another case, it was a brown sweater tied around the waist. The secret police was infiltrated by Solidarity sympathizers, and announcing the signal too early would lead to disseminating this information among demonstrators. The signalling devices were becoming obsolete anyway over time as Solidarity radio technicians were decoding critical pieces of information overheard from police airwaves.29

(The ease with which conventional signals can be exploited by mimics is revealed by Kaminski's “private strategy” during the May Day demonstrations, which “was to keep a small red flag or a red flower in my pocket, and then use it to cross a police cordon when needed. The flag signaled flawlessly that I was a participant of the official May Day parade. The cost was frequent nasty comments from fellow-demonstrators.”)30

Conventional signals have served to identify members of criminal organizations not only for specific operations but also to allow member recognition generally. Chu Yiu Kong reports:

Over the years triad members have developed numerous methods, such as passwords, phrases, poems, hand signs, gestures, seals, slang, and jargon, to show their identities. Traditionally, the initiated members were taught those means of identification so that they could easily identify themselves and communicate with each other. In Hong Kong, most means of identification are commonly used throughout the triad community. For instance, the Fung, Lao, Po and Yan are universal verses, which can be used by all triad members in Hong Kong. Some means of identification, however, are specifically for the identification of a particular society. In Hong Kong, well-organised triad societies normally have their own “title” verse. For example the title verse of the 14K is: “The name of our family rises high as the phoenix dances and the dragon flies, like a bolt from the blue the title of our family rumbles over the land, with K Gold as our mark, China with the righteous 14 guard.

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