In the Ghost Shadows The Untold Story of Chinatown's Most Powerful Crime Boss

A never-before-seen glimpse into the rarefied world of the Ghost Shadows, New York’s powerful Chinese crime organization of the 1970s and '80s—written by the young leader who ran it: reformed gangster Peter Chin.

Only in fairy tales can a poor orphan become royalty. But in New York City’s Chinatown, one street kid managed to rise to the top ranks of a criminal gang dynasty.

This is no fairy tale. This really happened . . .

IN THE GHOST SHADOWS

They were the most powerful gang in Chinatown. Like the notorious crime families of the Italian Mob, the Asian youth gang known as the Ghost Shadows carved out their own territory in New York’s underworld and ruled those streets for decades. Their leader Peter Chin, a young immigrant from the outskirts of Hong Kong, not only found a new family among his fellow gang members but became one of the two most powerful men in Chinatown’s history at that time. He even straddled the line between the city’s Asian Mob and the Italian Mafia, adopted as a “godson” of a high-ranking member of the Genovese crime family. Eventually it all came crashing down—when Chin and twenty-four other Ghost Shadows were indicted and imprisoned for racketeering under the RICO Act. But throughout his twenty years in prison, and even since his release, Chin has kept his code of silence . . .

Until now.

For the first time ever, the former leader of the Ghost Shadows breaks his silence in this honest tell-all to author Everett De Morier, revealing the never-before-told story of his incredible, harrowing life. From his first arrival in New York’s gritty Chinatown at the age of eight to his fateful initiation into the street gangs at thirteen, Chin found a new sense of belonging and brotherhood—as well as a dangerous world of gun fights and gang wars, gambling and extortion, Mob-style shootings and, ultimately, arrests. Now a successful businessman, Chin gives readers a rarefied glimpse into why a young man would choose a life of crime—and how he managed to beat the odds to rise in the ranks and live to tell the tale. But at its heart, Chin’s is a story of family, loyalty, and redemption, with an inspiring message of hope for anyone who’s made mistakes, paid the price, and learned from the past to build a better tomorrow.

Includes 8 pages of never-before-seen photographs

Peter Chin was born on the outskirts of Hong Kong in 1959 and immigrated to New York City with his mother and sisters in 1967. Changing his name from Chin Chit Chuey to Peter Chin, he became a member of Chinatown’s Ghost Shadows gang in the 1970s and ’80s, where he rose to the highest ranks of organized crime. His never-before-told story is the subject of In the Ghost Shadows.

Everett De Morier is the award-winning author of three nonfiction books and the novel Thirty-Three Cecils, which won the top fiction prize at the London Book Festival, is required high school and college reading, and is being adapted as a feature film. In the Ghost Shadows, co-written with Peter Chin, is his first true-crime memoir.