Highbinders

Highbinders is a terms attributed to describing organizations of enforcers and hitmen that worked for Chinese criminal organizations active in United States, especially in China towns in major cities like San-Francisco, from 1870s to 1910s.

Like their counterparts in Triads back in China, they were secret societies that operated within their own city's Chinatown, with San Francisco being the largest and oldest established in the United States. These organizations started off as the protection new Chinese immigrants needed; providing whatever community service was needed for a growing populace. However, it didn't take long before they would seek funding through more illicit means: extortion, racketeering, gambing, opium dens, prostitution, and anything else a self respecting criminal enterprise would do. Eventually they developed into big criminal empires that plagued the west coast China towns with their gang wars and other acts of violence, only to have the quack of 1906 and a joint effort of San Francisco resident and police department put them to a stop.

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