In the 1980's a new gang arrived in several Chinatowns, including Vancouver, Toronto, New York City: the "Big Circle Boys". In Hong Kong and China, they are called Dai Huen Jai.

According to crime writer Dubro, the Big Circle boys came from mainland China, after the Cultural Revolution of the mid- 1960's. The original members were army members or Red Guards who were purged and sent to detention camps near Canton (now called Guangzhou). Supposedly, the few maps allowed by the repressive Communist government showed these detention camps as a big circle, and Canton is sometimes called "the Big City".

Dubro got some of his information from A.P. "Tony" Lee, a specialist in Chinese triads, and a former superintendent of the Royal Hong Kong Police. Lee also did a study of the Big Circle Boys for the Metropolitan Toronto Police's Asian Investigative Unit, in 1991.

Lee said that the purged Red Guards "were treated like hardened criminals and were constantly abused by the People's Liberation Army guards." Other sources note that political prisoners in that period were subjected to "re-education" which amounted to brain-washing or worse.

Reportedly between 1969 and 1975 some of these prisoners escaped to Hong Kong, from where they were admitted to Canada and the United States as political refugees, or more often, were smuggled in illegally.

The Big Circle Boys in Hong Kong initiated a series of violent armed robberies in the mid-1970's, specializing in robbing couriers and other high cash targets. Lee attributes 80 per cent of all such robberies in the late 1970's to the Big Circle Boys (BCB).

According to Dubro, the Big Circle Boys are not one unified gang. The label was coined to refer to all gangs of mainland Chinese origin, but there is now a second generation of these gangs, some of whom have never seen China. Dubro estimates there are about one hundred members of the BCBs in Canada, mostly in Vancouver and Toronto.

Unlike most Asian youth gangs, the BCBs are older men (perhaps in their 30's) who may have military training, and speak Cantonese. The BCBs have specialized in transporting illegal aliens, a profession refered to as "Snakeheads", although the BCBs may call themselves "sewer rats". According to Dubro, the BCBs also smuggle heroin to the U.S. via Vancouver or Toronto; have been known to traffick in arms; as well as robberies and kidnapping.

One famous case of alien smuggling was run by a woman member of a BCB gang, King Fong Yue or Toronto. She was arrested after "Operation Overflight" in 1990. Another women "snakehead" was Cheng Chui-Ping. Dubro gives the details of Operation Overflight, and calls illegal immigration the "growth industry of the 90's", amounting to millions of dollars. Most of the aliens claimed "refugee status" upon arrival, and then went on welfare.

Another source for research is the paper given by Constable Bill Chu of British Columbia's Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit's Asian gang unit, delivered at the March 1989 Vancouver conference of Asian crime specialists. Chu found links and co- operation between the Big Circle Boys and Vancouver's Lotus gang. Dubro says that in Toronto, the BCBs have worked together with the Kung Lok triad, and has run some joint crimes with Vietnamese gangs.

Dubro also documents a case showing very strong links between the BCBs in Vancouver and Big Circle Boys in Hong Kong. Apparently, the BCBs do not use a triad-like structure. The group has also split into two levels: the more mature members specializing in heroin trafficking from the "Golden Triangle" (Laos, Burma, Thailand) to North America; while the younger set are involved in more violent local crimes, including "home invasions", and even raiding gambling houses guarded by other gangs.

The Big Circle Boys in both Toronto and Vancouver have developed techniques of extorting money from other wealthy Chinese, including threatening their children. Or they may arrive as an armed group in the home, at night, terrorizing everyone, and taking jewellry and even substantial sums of money that some Chinese keep in their homes, not trusting banks.

Beginning in 1989, the RCMP of Canada started some co-ordinated information sharing with the Chinese communist government, on the Big Circle Boys, in an operation called "Red Star". As more heroin shipments began to move directly through mainland China, INTERPOL and other police agencies also worked with the Chinese government.

On November 8, 1990 eight members of the Big Circle Boys were arrested in New York, Hong Kong and Toronto, as a result of Project Dragon and Dragon IV. On February 21, 1991, Ernest Liu, a New York City banker (formerly from Hong Kong) was indicted on 113 counts of money laundering for a "Chinese crime organization". (charges by Arthur Maloney, US Attorney for Brooklyn).

The Asian Investigative Unit in Toronto suspects that the Kung Lok triad are using Big Circle Boys to import heroin into Toronto.

In a footnote, Dubro cautions that the Big Circle Boys should not be confused with yet another group from mainland China, the Fukien gangs:

"Yet another Chinese crime group looms on the horizon for Canada according to Tony Lee's recent report [1991]. It is the gangs from Fujian or Fukien province that are already established in the States, especially in New York City and Los Angeles. The Fuk Ching (Fujianese youth) gang surfaced in New York City in the late 1980's. They speak a different dialect than the Hong Kong and BCB gangs. It is the Fujianese dialect, not understood by most Chinese in North America. In addition, there are Mandarin- speaking gangs of Taiwanese and Shanghainese emerging in Los Angeles and Texas. But the Fukien gangs have worked closely in joint alien- and drug-smuggling projects with the Cantonese big Circle boys gangs, both in North America and China."