Chinese Gangster on Satanic Rituals, Becoming a Cop, and NYC in the 90s

Summary

Camp Gagnon: Chinese Gangster on Satanic Rituals, Becoming a Cop, and NYC in the 90s

Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest: Mike Moy
Release Date: June 19, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Camp Gagnon, host Mark Gagnon sits down with Mike Moy, a man whose life journey traverses the murky waters of Chinatown’s underworld and the disciplined corridors of the NYPD. Moy shares his firsthand experiences, shedding light on Chinese gang dynamics, initiation rituals, and his transformation from a gang member to a decorated detective.

Early Life and Gang Involvement

Mike Moy was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown, where his teenage years were marked by involvement with the Fuch Ching gang. This period was pivotal, shaping his understanding of both the criminal world and the protective allure gangs offered to marginalized youth.

"I was the only Asian kid in my class. Throughout those years, especially during the 70s and 80s, it wasn't easy." (18:05)

Initiation Rituals

Moy delves into the elaborate initiation rituals required to join the Fuch Ching gang. These ceremonies were more than mere rites of passage; they were a testament to loyalty and respect within the gang hierarchy.

"We gave the incense to General Kwan, poured the white wine on the floor, and mixed our blood with the wine. It was a solemn honor." (04:52)

He contrasts the local Chinatown gangs with the more structured Triads based in Hong Kong, highlighting the differences in their operational methods and cultural codes.

Gang Dynamics in Chinatown

The conversation explores the intricate relationship between local gangs and the Tongs—the community organizations that acted as intermediaries between the gangs and legitimate businesses. Moy explains how the Tongs facilitated connections with politicians and managed community affairs, effectively serving as a bridge between criminal activities and the broader Chinese-American community.

"The Tongs are like your local government for Chinese-speaking people in a city." (08:30)

Moy also discusses the primary criminal activities driven by these gangs, such as gambling operations, extortion, and the counterfeit goods trade, emphasizing how these illicit enterprises were deeply woven into the community’s fabric.

Transition to the NYPD

Driven by personal reflections and a desire for change, Moy sought to leave his life within the gangs. Influenced by a fellow officer’s act of forgiveness, he reconsidered his path and decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. His transition from "bad to blue" marked a significant turning point in his life.

"I started to think maybe doing the right thing is a good thing because I've been doing all these bad things." (87:00)

Moy details the rigorous process of joining the NYPD, including background checks that surprisingly revealed nothing on paper despite his past.

Experiences as a Detective

As a detective in the NYPD, Moy applied his deep understanding of criminal mindsets to his investigations. His unique background provided him with insights that many of his peers lacked, allowing him to navigate complex cases with a nuanced perspective.

"I understand their mindset. So when I make the arrest, I know their mindset." (115:49)

Moy recounts various cases, including high-stakes drug busts and intricate gang-related crimes, illustrating the challenges and dangers he faced on the force.

Cultural Insights and Respect

A recurring theme in Moy’s narrative is the importance of respect within gangster culture. He explains how cultural values like loyalty and face play crucial roles in maintaining order and enforcing codes of conduct among gang members.

"Respect is a big thing. You respect us, we respect you." (75:30)

Moy contrasts these values with those of other gangs, highlighting the patience and long-term strategies employed by Chinese gangs in seeking revenge and maintaining their reputations.

Personal Reflections and Challenges

Moy reflects on the psychological toll of his dual life, grappling with his past actions and his role within the police force. The emotional weight of transitioning from a gang member to a detective is evident as he shares personal stories that underscore his internal conflict and drive for redemption.

"I did a lot of self-reflection. That's another reason why I didn't get into hard drugs." (87:00)

Legal Battles and Current Endeavors

Post-retirement, Moy has taken legal actions against the NYPD, alleging misconduct and corruption within the force. He discusses the slow wheels of justice and the challenges faced in seeking accountability from higher-ups who betrayed him.

"These are the guys that handled my case and did this to me." (128:50)

Additionally, Moy has authored a book titled "Bad to Blue," which chronicles his life story, offering an insider’s perspective on Chinatown’s gang history and his journey within law enforcement.

"If you've made it to the end of this episode, that's because you rock with us. And Mike Moy's 'Bad to Blue' provides a detailed account of these untold stories." (132:20)

UFO Encounters and Human Fascinations

In an unexpected turn, Moy shares anecdotes from his years in the NYPD where fellow officers reported unexplained UFO sightings. These tales add an intriguing layer to his narrative, blending the gritty realities of gang life with the mysterious allure of the unknown.

"One guy saw an object as big as a football field hovering in the sky and just shot off instantly without a sound." (123:28)

Conclusion

Mike Moy's story is a remarkable testament to personal transformation and the complexities of identity within immigrant communities. From the depths of Chinatown’s gang life to the structured environment of the NYPD, Moy's experiences offer invaluable insights into the cultural and social dynamics that shape both criminal organizations and law enforcement.

For those interested in delving deeper into Moy's life and the untold stories of Chinatown’s past, his book "Bad to Blue" is available on Amazon, providing a comprehensive exploration of his journey and the intricate tapestry of New York City's underbelly during the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• 04:52 Mike Moy: "We gave the incense to General Kwan, poured the white wine on the floor, and mixed our blood with the wine. It was a solemn honor."
• 08:30 Mike Moy: "The Tongs are like your local government for Chinese-speaking people in a city."
• 18:05 Mike Moy: "I was the only Asian kid in my class. Throughout those years, especially during the 70s and 80s, it wasn't easy."
• 75:30 Mike Moy: "Respect is a big thing. You respect us, we respect you."
• 87:00 Mike Moy: "I started to think maybe doing the right thing is a good thing because I've been doing all these bad things."
• 115:49 Mike Moy: "I understand their mindset. So when I make the arrest, I know their mindset."
• 123:28 Mike Moy: "One guy saw an object as big as a football field hovering in the sky and just shot off instantly without a sound."

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This summary aims to provide an insightful overview of Mike Moy's profound experiences, capturing the essence of his conversation with Mark Gagnon on Camp Gagnon. For those intrigued by the intersection of criminal underworlds and law enforcement, this episode offers a riveting exploration of loyalty, transformation, and the enduring quest for justice.

Transcript

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

Carrollton, Texas. This is Mike Moy. He went from running with the Fuching gang in Chinatown, where initiation meant drinking wine mixed with human blood, to becoming a decorated NYPD detective. He's seen both sides of the badge, from backroom gambling dens to jewelry store robberies, from street codes of honor to courtroom battles with the department he once served. We talk about the ancient values that still shape modern Chinese crime, from revenge to loyalty and even the concept of face. And how these values collide with the NYPD's internal politics. This is a story of a man who lived by one code and then tried to enforce another. And what happens ultimately when they turn on this episode is absolutely amazing. And Mike is a phenomenal storyteller. He truly captures a period of New York City that no one else covers. A time in Chinatown when gangs ran the show. If you're interested in crime and how a criminal can turn into a police officer and specifically the nuances of a culture in America that never gets highlighted in the true crime story, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp Mike Moy. How are you, sir? Good, Mark, thank you so much for joining me in the tent. I really appreciate. This is a long time coming and I'm really excited to chat. For anyone that's not familiar with you, you have a fascinating life story. Born in New York City, raised in Chinatown. In her teenage years, got linked up with the Fukching Chinatown gang. You know, sort of was tangentially related to gambling houses and other types of, like, Fraud and crime in the. In the area. And then at a certain point, joined the NYPD and served, you know, 26 years in the. In the police department, many of those years as a detective in Brooklyn. And you've been on both sides of the crime spectrum, both as a practitioner of crime, but then also as a crime stopper. And you have a very interesting perspective on, I think, New York City, I think about what it means to be a Chinese American living in New York and then additionally understanding crime in a very, very interesting way. So I'm excited to break down the whole story and get into everything, but one of the things that I saw in the research that I thought was interesting is the initiation ritual to join some of these Chinese gangs. I didn't realize that many of these gangs have elaborate initiations. So could you talk about the initiation ritual for you joining the Fuch Ching when you were a teenager and then some of the other triad initiation rituals and how they differ?

[Mike Moy]

Yes, sure, Mark. I got the front row seat to the gangs and the police department with the initiation process. I didn't get initiated until I believe it was probably around 89 or 1990, if I remember correctly. I joined a gang in 1986. You know, I was hanging around with them as an associate. And then one day I got called. Me and a guy named Cabahead. And there was one other guy, his name is. We'll just call him the other guy.

[Mark]

Sure.

[Mike Moy]

Because I don't keep in touch with him anymore. So it was the three of us. We reported to our Dai Lo's apartment. I didn't know what we were going there for.

[Mark]

And the Dai Lo is the leader.

[Mike Moy]

Dai Lo is the. Well, he's my Dai Lo's Dai Lo. So my Dai Lo would be called a daima. He's the guy who recruited me. So he's a rank above me. So above him is the Dai Lo. But anyone who's a rank above you, you refer to them as a Dai Lo. So I'm not going to call a daima a Dai Ma. That's the term that, you know, we don't.

[Mark]

You can't say.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. So we just call them Dai Lo out of respect.

[Mark]

Got it?

[Mike Moy]

Dailo means big brother in Chinese. So he called me in and he told me that we're getting initiated. So the process I like ceremony, was like he had the chicken, the white wine, the General Kwan. We did the incense. We gave the incense to General Kwan, poured the white wine on the floor, picked our middle finger, take the blood out of Our middle finger. Drop it into the wine. Pour it. And the reason for the middle finger is because in Chinese, the middle finger is called meaning. You could say loyal zhong. Some, like, loyal zhong can have other different meanings in Chinese. But it's based upon loyalty. And he would recite some of his recite. His recital was more like, you know, being loyal to the gang. You know, you don't rant on, you know, your fellow gang mates. You know, respect is a big thing. So he went through all that. And to me, it was like an honor for him to accept me and trust me. Because there's plenty of people in our crew. And there was only a select few that was initiated to be in the inner circle. So that's how it went. The New York City Chinatown gang initiation isn't as elaborate as the triads.

[Mark]

And the triads would be the gang structure that exists in Hong Kong.

[Mike Moy]

Yes, there's a difference. The Tongs, the triads and the gangs. So some people refer to the Chinese gangs as like the Chinese mob or maybe other. I mean, we're not the mob. We're not the Yakuza. We're not the cartel. We're just a local street gang. The Triads is more. It's based in Hong Kong, the 14K, Sun Yuan. And then there's some triads that's based in Taiwan, like the Bamboo Triad. And, you know, they're all over. They have their people all over the world. So more international based. But the local street gang in Chinatown is based on one or two streets. And that's what we were. But we had the control of Chinatown. So even the triads don't have that kind of control. They would have to go to the Tongs to get approval for whatever they're doing in New York City. So that's how much power the Chinatown gangs had.

[Mark]

Interesting. And this ritual you would.

[Mike Moy]

And the Tongs were like the liaison to the triads and the gangs.

[Mark]

In New York.

[Mike Moy]

In New York.

[Mark]

Oh, really?

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. The Tong Association.

[Mark]

The Tong Association. They would basically act as like a middleman.

[Mike Moy]

Middleman.

[Mark]

And why did they have the disordinate power? Yeah. Why did the Tongs, like, why were they the ones that were the liaison?

[Mike Moy]

The Tangs consist of people. The residents of Chinatown. The elder, the local businessmen, the respectable people. People who's been here longer.

[Mark]

I see. So they kind of bridge, like, a cultural gap between crime but then also legitimate business.

[Mike Moy]

And they have the connections to the politicians. They're the ones who entertain, you know, the police department or any Permits that they need or anything to do with the community so they can get stuff done. They can get stuff done.

[Mark]

That makes sense.

[Mike Moy]

Because when you come to this country and you don't speak a word of English, who do you rely on? You're going to rely on your local Tong association. They're going to get. It's like a one stop shop. They'll get everything done for you. Everything and anything.

[Mark]

Ah, I see.

[Mike Moy]

Whether you need a place to rent, whether you need a job, settle a dispute, a loan.

[Mark]

It acts as. It's almost like its own local government for Chinese speaking people in a city.

[Mike Moy]

Exactly. So it's like you getting drawn to China.

[Mark]

Yeah, I'd be with Americans.

[Mike Moy]

You're going to have your own local group. Maybe you have your own like social club or maybe a club or whatever you want to call it.

[Mark]

That's interesting. All righty. Don't skip forward, guys, because I am on the road. World's fastest ad read coming at you. I'm going to be at Portland, Oregon, Fort Worth, Texas, Austin, Texas, Stanford, Philly, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego. I'm also going to be adding Toronto, Montreal, as well as Washington D.C. and a bunch of other dates. Dates are in the description, also in probably the comments of this episode. Go see me on the road. Come hang out. I'll be hanging out with everyone after the show. Come shake my hand, call me an idiot, whatever you want to do, I will be there. Additionally, I will be doing my one hour of stand up comedy. I'm very proud of this hour. I'm really excited to share with you guys and it would mean the world if everyone could come on out. I'll see you guys there. Let's get back to the show. So when you do the initiation ritual and they. And they take the blood from your middle finger and they mix it in with this wine and there's like this ritualized ceremony. At the time were you thinking like, oh, this is a little crazy or were you thinking like, oh, this is just how it goes and no, I.

[Mike Moy]

Was thinking this is normal, like how it goes. Because you see in the movies and you hear it from other people.

[Mark]

Right. So by the time you're initiated, what was the main scheme that the fuching was sort of organizing and running in Chinatown? Was it mostly gambling houses?

[Mike Moy]

At that time, the Fuch Cheng was considered the new kids on the block. Nobody really knew of the Fuch Cheng. Nobody even heard of him. Right. So basically we wanted to make a name for ourselves because you had the ghost shadows The Flying Dragons and the Dong an, they were making headlines throughout the 70s and 80s. And by the mid-80s, that's when the Fu Ching came along. So from 85 going forward, we were the ones making headlines. But the reporters didn't know about the Fu Ching. So a lot of times they pegged it on the Flying Dragons, you know, or some other gangs or they just didn't put anything in the papers saying that it was gang related.

[Mark]

Oh, it was just a one off event. It was a random thing.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

And how did it. Did it frustrate the gang that you guys weren't getting credit or did you.

[Mike Moy]

The streets knew. The streets knew.

[Mark]

Right. And that's all that matters.

[Mike Moy]

Police knew later on, but the reporters at the time didn't know.

[Mark]

I see.

[Mike Moy]

For example, there was a jewelry store robbery. There was a retired cop who was working with the juror, hired by the juror and there was a robbery and it was all over the news in August of 94. That incident was the Fuch Ting, but the news said it was the Flying Dragons. There was a shooting at the Golden Keel Billiards. That was the Fuch Cheng back in the 80s. Newspaper never mentioned that.

[Mark]

They just said a random shooting happened.

[Mike Moy]

Yes. Then you had the 3 BTK who got shot in the parking lot in Manhattan at a bar. They arrested three Fuching member. The newspaper never claimed they were Fuching but the streets knew who was arrested.

[Mark]

Interesting.

[Mike Moy]

Then you had a non Asian that was shot and killed in a pool hall on Nordstrom Avenue and Avenue Hill. They never mentioned it was the Fuch Cheng. Interesting. So all these articles again, there was another white kid who got killed right off King's Highway. They never mentioned it was the Fuch Cheng. So there's a lot of cases that the streets knew, the gangs knew, the Chinatown gangs knew. So that's how the dialogue got his respect is because of the soldiers out there that he had doing this type of work that he's not going to stop them because he's getting the name out there.

[Mark]

Right. And fear is kind of growing amongst the other gangs.

[Mike Moy]

Yes. Because they were fighting for East Broadway with the Dongguan. The Dongguan controlled East Broadway and East Broadway. Was. Was a lot of money involved on East Broadway because a lot of gambling houses over there.

[Mark]

Now it seems like many of the Chinese gangs in Chinatown never really worked in drugs that frequently and they weren't. There was violence, but it typically seems like it was related to gambling houses and sort of like covert gambling operations. Is that fair to say? For the Fukching as well, was it typically gambling houses, or was there other criminal elements going along with it, like drugs and things like that?

[Mike Moy]

The billion dollar drug bust was in Chinatown, New York City.

[Mark]

Really?

[Mike Moy]

It was one of the biggest drug busts in history.

[Mark]

And which gang was this?

[Mike Moy]

Well, the Flying Dragons had a hold of some of them, some of the heroin that was coming in. Okay. They were big into the heroin trade. They were big into the heroin. Trademark machine gun Johnny. You know Onion Head, also known as Onion Head, the leader of Flying Dragons. And they were dealing with China White.

[Mark]

Oh, interesting.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. The Flying Dragons was supplying the Heaven to Boy George.

[Mark]

Oh, that's right. I think I remember Jimmy Sooie mentioning something about this. I didn't realize it was that broad, though. A billion dollars.

[Mike Moy]

Check it out. When the Italians got caught by the feds for dealing with Heaven, it left a vacuum, and that's when the Chinese moved in. A billion dollars. Check it out.

[Mark]

A billion dollars is wild. And how long does that run for? Is that all through the 80s and 90s?

[Mike Moy]

Through the 80s, yes. Into the 90s, correct.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

And some of the gangs had their hands on it. Had their hands on it. The Ghost Shadows didn't really do much with heroine. The Fuching had some, but our crew didn't deal with that because the Fuchsing was separated into different factions, different cliques, whatever you want to call it. Different sets. You know, you got the lead at the top, but then you have different sets.

[Mark]

I see. And was there beef within the sets of the folklore?

[Mike Moy]

No, no. It's like, under one family.

[Mark]

So it all functioned sort of harmoniously.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

I see. But now your initiation and involvement into the gang, correct me if I'm wrong, Came from kind of protection. Like, growing up in Chinatown, there was, like, you know, you were involved in, like, some fights and bullying and things like that, and that the gang sort of offered you a little bit of COVID and a community to kind of escape from that.

[Mike Moy]

It was an escape for me. I felt like I was protected, you.

[Mark]

Know, and protected from what, exactly? Was it other gang members?

[Mike Moy]

No, from the bullies.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

From the jocks in school. They were, like, relentless when it comes to bullying.

[Mark]

And how would that manifest for you when you were a teenager?

[Mike Moy]

I guess they bullied me.

[Mark]

Mm.

[Mike Moy]

I guess. How do I say it? They bullied me. But they. The best way to say it is they bullied me, but they made me. They created me. They created who I am.

[Mark]

And was it bullying for anything specific? Was it, you know, just where you Were at the time. Was it because of school? Was it sports related? Like, what was the impetus for this? Or was it just cruelty for no reason?

[Mike Moy]

You're gonna have to, like, dive into the mindset of a bully.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Okay. I was like, the only Asian kid in my class. And throughout the years, you know, especially during Those days from the 70s, 80s, there weren't too many Chinese. Weren't too many Chinese around. And my parents moved me to Brooklyn, you know, for. To get away from the gangs. But then now I wind up in Brooklyn and I get bullied.

[Mark]

And that pushes you farther in.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, they. I mean, it's in my book. It's not easy to talk about, like, being bullied.

[Mark]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike Moy]

You know, it's easier to write about it than to talk about it.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

You know, like, even as a kid, you know, like in the third grade, fourth grade, they'll call me a communist. I didn't even know what a communist was, you know, back in those days.

[Mark]

They're. They're insulting in a way that you're like, I don't even understand what this means. Like.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, how do these kids know what a communist is?

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

And they're so young.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. I mean.

[Mark]

Yeah, that's terrible to get bullied for something and you have to go home and ask your parents. You're like, what is this? Like, how. What does it mean to be this, you know? Yeah. That's frustrating.

[Mike Moy]

I mean, unless you walk in my shoes, you wouldn't understand. Right.

[Mark]

And then once you're initiated, now you're involved in the gang, did the bullying stop?

[Mike Moy]

Oh, yeah. They bullied me until they feared me, you know, it stopped, like, right away. It was like a light switch, I'll tell you that right now.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Because once I joined the gang, I really. I didn't go to school that much. Stopped going to school, you know, it was done that summer. When I came back, I was different.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

I mean, they can tell. They can tell.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

And they can sense it.

[Mark]

And they're looking for. They're looking for weakness. They're looking for people they can exploit.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

And then you come back and you don't have the weakness anymore. And they go, all right, we're not.

[Mike Moy]

Going to do that. My first day back after summer. Yeah. Somebody tested me and I had to fight. The old Michael wasn't going to do that. But then that's the new me, because I knew that, okay, I'll lose the fight, but at the end, we're gonna get you. Yeah, we'll Kill you. I have friends who's gonna kill you.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

And they will. Because back then, it's so easy to kill somebody and get away with it. There's no camera, there's no nothing.

[Mark]

Yeah. New York was a different place. Different place in the 80s and 90s.

[Mike Moy]

Different place because look. Look how many. They don't care about the Chinese. They don't care about the blacks. Let them kill each other. Look at all the unsolved cases in Chinatown. Unsolved homicide. There's about 38 of them during the era, just in that small two block radius. And then you have the homicide that's outside of Chinatown. So how many cases that's unsolved?

[Mark]

Hundreds.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

That no one's ever looking into Chinese gangs. Wow. Because they just say, hey, as long as this isn't disrupting our white suburb or our white neighborhood, it doesn't matter.

[Mike Moy]

Exactly. Even as a detective, we have a case in the Six Six Precinct, unsolved. You know, this Chinese person, this lady, got poisoned. She got poisoned. Yeah. And to this day, it's the one solved.

[Mark]

Wow. I mean, that is crazy. And are there any efforts, like, even when you were in the nypd, like, looking into it?

[Mike Moy]

I assisted with the case, but it all depends on the lead detective. If you have an incompetent detective or someone who don't care, someone who's not ambitious, somebody who doesn't do the right thing, the case goes nowhere.

[Mark]

That makes a lot of sense.

[Mike Moy]

This leads on that case even to this day. Just like the reason why I'm bringing this up is because last week somebody mentioned it. I was in the store and the lady said, I recognize you. You were that cop that came in. It was like over 10 years ago, something like that. You're the cop that came in who investigated this case. I go, yeah, I was. And then she goes, yeah, that lady was dealing with illegals, counterfeit cigarettes.

[Mark]

And then something happened to her.

[Mike Moy]

She must have. My speculation is she probably. Some people probably owed a lot of money and they just didn't want to pay. So the easiest way is just to put poison in the food. She was eating lunch and she just dropped dead in front of everybody.

[Mark]

I mean, that is wild. That's a type of assassination that I never even consider. Right. Like, when you think about, like, you know, gang violence, you typically think of, like, you know, guns and knives. You don't think about poison. That's crazy. And so in the time that you were involved in the fuching, what was your main role and how did you Sort of ascend the ranks to become, you know, a big brother, so to speak.

[Mike Moy]

I was never a Dai Lo. I was never a daima. I was always a soldier. I never aspired to be anything above that. I just wanted the protection. So I could have went a lot further. Wasn't me, you know.

[Mark]

So even when, even when you were involved, did you have. You never had like the desire necessarily to be sort of working in criminal operations. You just wanted the protection and sort of the brotherhood?

[Mike Moy]

Yes, but I wanted to make money. So basically, you know, I was doing things to make money being under the umbrella of that gang, under the protection of the gang name. I was able to open my own gambling house. I was able to open my own pool hall with nobody coming in to extort for me. I opened a store, a collectible store in Chinatown on Avenue U and also in Sunset Park. Nobody would extort from me.

[Mark]

And when it comes to gambling houses, specifically, what is the most lucrative game? Like if you're going to have, like.

[Mike Moy]

It depends what year, whatever. Like if you're talking about 70s, it's Pai Gow Tiles, Mahjong. And then you go into the 80s, you're talking about a lot of sports betting. The Chinese people got into sports betting by that time in the 80s, they still continue with their mahjong games, but then it transitioned into like the Taiwanese mahjong games instead of the Cantonese. So that was, that was. So that was popular. And then eventually transition into baccarat. Now it's baccarat. No, like during the 90s and up until like the 2000 baccarat. And then now it's a lot of machines. So a lot of machines, almost all machines now everything is done by machine, even baccarat. And then you got. The Chinese have their own slot machine, own type of slot machine that they put in the basement or in the back room. Sort of like the old fashioned joker poker machine. The slot machines that the Italian had, the Chinese have that now you can have a whole room of those slot machines.

[Mark]

Is baccarat originally a Chinese gang?

[Mike Moy]

Baccarat didn't originate in China. I mean, you know, where in Italy. Right.

[Mark]

That's interesting. And every time I go to a casino, I guess sometimes we'll do comedy shows at casinos and we'll see, you know, the high roller rooms. And it's a ton of Chinese men playing baccarat. I'm always curious why different games collect within different cultures. Like mahjong makes sense because it is traditionally a Chinese gang. But something like Baccarat did it just become a part of the community because it got introduced in gambling houses? I'm curious if you have a. I wonder if you saw the evolution into the different gambling games.

[Mike Moy]

Want to know why? Because I'm born in America, so I'm considered ABC American born Chinese. But I hang out with the people who come from Mainland China and from Hong Kong. Their mind works differently. They're looking for the best odds when they walk in the casino. Someone like me and you is more for entertainment. They're looking to make money. They're looking for the best odds. And the criminal element is looking for weakness for any way they can scam the casino. That's what they're looking for. Whether it's counterfeiting the chips or the coins in the slot machine back in those days or so many different ways to place a bet right after the dealer shows the card afterwards. And then maybe work along with the dealer. There's so many different ways to cheat. Mark the cards. Interesting, you know, or bend it. So they're looking to make money.

[Mark]

So if you're running a gambling house and someone comes in and you see them kind of manipulating the cards or you see them cheating a little bit, they're taking money away from you. So what do you do if you see someone that's not playing fair?

[Mike Moy]

Do you go, you mean in the gambling house?

[Mark]

Yeah. Like if you're.

[Mike Moy]

Or at a casino.

[Mark]

In the gambling house.

[Mike Moy]

In the gambling house. They are in the gambling house. What they do is there's a lot of gambling houses that cheat the customers. So it's rare that the customer would cheat the gambling house.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

If you heard from Big Head's interview, they have magnetic dice. Okay. Some places hire professional dealers, like magicians. I'm telling you, you can't even tell they're dealing. They could deal any cause they want at any time, at any time. And these people are in high demand. Back in those days when the gambling houses were making so much money. Wow.

[Mark]

Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Especially because with the casino, you think, like, I'm sure the casinos do this also. Like, I'm. I don't know, I'm kind of skeptical where I just assume, you know, the casinos are trying to make money. So there's ways that they make sure that they're making money. Obviously the odds are in their fav. But when it comes to, like a gambling house, it's not necessarily as regulated. I could see them being like, all right, let's make sure. If someone's getting Too ahead. We bring them down.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. I wouldn't worry about the casino. The major casinos cheating is regulated by the gaming Commission.

[Mark]

Right. But something like a gambling house, you can hire anyone you want.

[Mike Moy]

But if you go to another country or some of these Southeast Asian countries, if it's not. If it's a privately owned casino, I wouldn't go there.

[Mark]

Right. Oh, that's interesting. But did you ever have people try to cheat in your gambling house that you opened?

[Mike Moy]

No, nobody cheated in my gambling place.

[Mark]

Because it'd be too risky.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, it'd be risky. Yeah. They'll be taking a chance.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

And then they would definitely face some repercussions.

[Mark]

Right. There'd be some type of penalty or something, I imagine. And how do you protect the gambling house? Because even talking to Jimmy, that was always the biggest issue is that another gang would come in and try to rob the gambling house.

[Mike Moy]

That's another misconception that people have about protecting the gambling house. How the gangs protect the gambling house. You're not going to get a gang member. Occasionally the gang members hang out there. You know, of course, like my dialo would say, oh, you know, we're having a high stakes game tonight. You know, go with your guys and just hang out there in a high rise condo. Right. So we go there and we just hang out there. Yeah. So we're protecting the place, but we're not there 24 7. The place is open 24 7. Right. We're not going to be at a gambling house 24 7. Like 7 11. You're not going to get a gangster there with a gun at 4am yeah. It's not going to happen. Right. It's by name, by name. It's unwritten rule in Chinatown. Right. For example, you have flying dragons, they have Power Street, Doyle street. You have ghost shadows. Right. They have Ma Street, Bayard Street. If they. Who's going to go rob the gambling house when they, like the Flying Dragon is not going to go into that territory and rob the gambling house because.

[Mark]

They know, hey, no.

[Mike Moy]

Just like, it's just like a bar in Bay Ridge. It's protected by the Gambino crime family. Let's say. Are you going to have a Gambino captain there standing there with his arm crossed with a gun in his jacket to protect the place? No. Nobody's going to go mess with that place because they know it's protected.

[Mark]

Because you might get the money tonight, but you don't know what's going to happen to you in two weeks.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. So who's going to rob the gambling house. What happened was when Ghost Shadows wanted to take over the territory from the Black Eagles and the White Eagles. Yeah, they went and robbed all the gambling houses in Chinatown. Make a statement.

[Mark]

But that was a very intentional push to, like, try to take over territory and make a name. Yeah, that's not necessarily commonplace.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, but generally nobody's gonna go rob a gambling house from the opposing rival gang. Until the BTK came and they. The unwritten rules, street rules that the Chinese had, it was out the window. They were hungry. They didn't care.

[Mark]

The BTK were the ones.

[Mike Moy]

The Vietnamese gang.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

And that's another story. That's a whole other story. And if there's a robbery in a gambling house, it's most likely an inside job within the gang, probably from an associate because we had one, like I said, in that high rise condo, eventually that place got robbed. So my Dai Lo suspected it was one of us in our crew. Okay. But he couldn't prove it. But he suspected that it was this guy. It was in my book. He suspected it was this kid who did it because he trusted me. He trusted Cambodian Peter, his Dai Ma and the other guys. He knew who to trust. This kid was an associate. And one thing about the Chinese, they don't forget. They don't forget because after all those years, all right, you figure more than 20 years, and I was already a cop in the street. I was in my police scooter and I happened to bump into my Tai Lord. My Dai Lo. Is Dai Lo in the street? I haven't seen him all those years. Bumped into him. The first word out of his mouth when he walked up to my police scooter was, have you seen the guy? I already knew who he was referring to, you know. Wow.

[Mark]

And how'd you see him?

[Mike Moy]

Read the book. Read the book.

[Mark]

Wow. I mean, yeah. That feeling of never forgetting, it never goes away.

[Mike Moy]

One thing about the Chinese, I mean, remember, I'm born here in the us so I'm considered an abc American Born Chinese. So I don't have that mentality like the Chinese, but I grew up around them, so I understand how they think. They're very patient when it comes to revenge. Because in the 70s, as a child, my uncle used to take me to watch short brother movies, right? And you see those kung fu movies back in those days in the 70s, it was all about revenge, right? Just pick any movie. Any kung fu movie is about revenge, Right?

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

You kill my master, I'm going to train in Kung fu. I'll kill your master. I don't care If I train 10, 20 years. I'm going to come back and get you.

[Mark]

Oh, that's really interesting. That's rooted in a real cultural reality of the Chinese patients, specifically in mainland China of we'll wait as long as we need to.

[Mike Moy]

Damn, they could wait for generations.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

I mean, it's just that's, you know, I learned these things by being around them, right?

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

Different set of values, morals and boundaries. You know, growing up in us, we have different sets of these things, but they don't have that. You know, it's like you hear stories like how some people from other countries, the gangs, how they operate over there, they'll kill your whole family. Right. I mean, not just China, I'm saying like other countries as well. In South America, wherever. You know, over here, it's different. We have certain boundaries. Right. You get like, let's say a black kid from the projects, a gang member, he do something wrong, are they going to kill his whole family? They all live there. Yeah, right. So it's different. It's different. The triads do things different. Their mindset is different. They're all about making money, you know, but if you cross them, then they'll look to get revenge. If they can't get you here, they'll get your family in China, it's different.

[Mark]

Oh, really? That would happen that they would just say, hey, we're not going to get you in the United States, the legal system, whatever, but we know where your uncle is in Beijing or Hong Kong and we'll find them.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Just like one of the gang members in the Dong Wan gang, his family was in China. The kid was over here as an illegal and he faked his own kidnapping so he can extort get the money from his father, from his parents. Like, how low can you go?

[Mark]

I mean, that seems crazy.

[Mike Moy]

With someone who's born in the US you really got to stoop really low to do something like.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

Like it's something that you wouldn't even think of. You know, there are some things that they do in China that an American born Chinese would not even. Wouldn't even cross their mind, let's put it that way.

[Mark]

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Did they ever treat you differently? Like, did they value your insight as an American or did they speak to you in a different way because you weren't from.

[Mike Moy]

Of course.

[Mark]

What was that relationship like?

[Mike Moy]

They see me as abc. They see me as an abc, but I was accepted because I spoke Cantonese and I was able to blend in.

[Mark]

And so that was enough to be like, all right, you're good enough.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Because they would not accept anyone in that inner circle if you didn't speak Cantonese. You wouldn't be trusted.

[Mark]

Right?

[Mike Moy]

You would not be trusted. That's why it's so difficult to get any outsiders into the gang during that era, if you only spoke English you're gonna be an offshoot. You're gonna be part of the ABC Flying Dragons or something, you know?

[Mark]

Right. But there were some flying Dragons that were, like, Italian at some point later on, is that correct? I think Jimmy had mentioned maybe there.

[Mike Moy]

Was, like, a couple, but they're not in the inner circle. They just, like, hang around the Flying Dragons. You had a black kid in the ghost shadows, and they're not.

[Mark]

You can never be fully.

[Mike Moy]

I tried to get the black guy, my friend diamond, involved with our activities. If you read my book, me and diamond were very close. You know, he's a black guy from Guyana, Guyanese. And I tried to get him in to do more, to get more involved with the gang. And it was tough, tough to get him to be accepted. And my dailo wouldn't want nothing to do with it.

[Mark]

Interesting, you know. And did you talk to your Dai Lo to say, like, no, he's good. He can be productive.

[Mike Moy]

I spoke to my daima. I said, you could I trust him with my life. He knew and even that. But I just couldn't get up to the next level.

[Mark]

So did diamond ever get involved?

[Mike Moy]

Only through the dealings with me.

[Mark]

Interesting.

[Mike Moy]

Only through the dealings with me. So between me and him, we dealt in bootleg videos, martial art videos, kung fu movies, different guns, marijuana, credit card fraud and things like that. No hard drugs. You know, he used to do a lot of robberies, and he was wanted in many different states. So eventually he got deported for. For some shootings that he did, you know. He was wanted for a lot of shootings as well. Yeah.

[Mark]

I'm always curious how the Chinese gangs interfaced with other gangs in New York, like the Italian gangs, the black gangs. What was the relationship? Did they ever deal together? Did they work together on certain, you know, schemes? Or was it pretty separate?

[Mike Moy]

I can only speak on my experience. We had a very good relationship with the blacks, with the American blacks, the Guyanese blacks, Jamaican blacks. Because my store was right in the heart of Flatbush, at the junction, Flatbush and Ostron. It was predominantly a black neighborhood. And I had a 6,000 square foot pool hall with 19 pool tables and a table tennis table. And across the street, I had a collectible store where we stash all our illegal stuff, like the guns and marijuana.

[Mark]

When you say collectible store, what kind of collectibles?

[Mike Moy]

Everything from baseball caps, T shirts, baseball cards, comic books.

[Mark]

Got it. So any type of memorabilia?

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, memorabilia.

[Mark]

What was the coolest piece of memorabilia that you had?

[Mike Moy]

The what?

[Mark]

The coolest piece of memorabilia like, was there an item that you had in the store that you really.

[Mike Moy]

You name it, it went to my hands.

[Mark]

Really.

[Mike Moy]

I'm telling you, it's. To me, it wasn't about collecting. By that time, once I became a dealer and start selling it, it was all about the transaction. I mean, you name it. Besides amazing Spider man number one. I mean, I had X Men number one. Really the Hulk number one in really very fine condition. I'll go on and on. I had whatever rookie cards you can name it, like just so many. Like George Brett rookie card, Reggie Jackson, Tom Seaver.

[Mark]

What was the highest ticket item? Do you remember the transaction where it.

[Mike Moy]

Was the biggest Willie Mays rookie card? Bowman, how much? At that time it was like maybe 5,000. I don't know how much it costs now. A bowman 1951 Willie Mays rookie card. How much is that now? I mean, you know, back then. Back then, there wasn't grading. I mean, you don't send the card in to get graded now. Yeah, it's a whole process and everything, but everything was just. It just came across my hands because a lot of people came in and sold their stuff to me.

[Mark]

What is that card worth now? I see a listing for 70,000, 70,000, 41,000, 29,000. And even 5,000 in that time is probably closer to, you know, 20,000 today or something like that. Maybe 15,000.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. I had the incredible Hulk number one in like near mint condition. That was like, at that time. I remember being able to pick up that copy for $700. Yeah.

[Mark]

Wow. And did you enjoy that part of the business?

[Mike Moy]

I like the wheeling and dealing part. Yeah.

[Mark]

I mean, that's the thing. It doesn't seem like you like the game. Like whether it's illegal or legitimate, it seems like you like the transaction and the deal.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, exactly. There was one time this guy came in my store, just opened the store, not even a month. Came in my store with a bag full of cards. There was about maybe two or two and a half decks of like playing cards, you know, wrapped in rubber band. He goes, do you buy cards? I go, yeah, sure, I buy cards. Of course. Let me see what you got. I'm looking through the cards. We got Nolan Ryan's rookie card. Tom Seaver, George Brett, Reggie Jackson. And it's like near mint condition, like straight out of a pack, all centered, sharp corners. I'm like, wow, it's gotta be over 20,000 retail. Over 20,000, right. I'm like, how much you want for it? Says something like, can I get six or, you know, something like that, Right. He drew out a number, right? So I'm saying, like, it's like 6,000. Like, you know, so I'm think. I think he mentioned something like seven. Okay. If I remember correctly, he mentioned, like, can I guess seven? So I'm thinking 7,000. So I'm thinking even 7,000.

[Mark]

That's a great deal.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, I'll take. You know, I'm like, where am I going to get the money? Like, okay, let me work on getting the money. I'm like. So I said, you know what? Like, how about six? And then he goes to me, I can't get 70. So this guy was. You could tell he was like a crackhead.

[Mark]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Moy]

During that time, you know, crack was in. Yeah, I could tell. Yeah. I thought he really wanted, like, 7,000 or something. So I said, so when he says six. So when I offer him six, right? Then he goes, I can't get 70. Then I knew he was the numbers he was thinking about. So I said, yeah, best I could do is give you 60, so I'll take it. So I gave him $60, something like that. And then he was happy. He walked out. What then I went home, I laid out all the cards. I had the cards sold already that, like, I had people who wanted to lined up.

[Mark]

Yeah, yeah. You won't believe that I just got.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Right off the bat, those cars are sold. Sold for like, a little under 20,000, like, right off the bat.

[Mark]

Wow, that's interesting that people are coming to this collectible store, dealing with you, thinking that, you know, all you do is collectibles. Not knowing that at the time, you're also, you know, intimately involved with a Chinese gang. They're dealing with a Chinese gangster.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. They didn't know.

[Mark]

Interesting. I'm always curious with, like, the, you know, the billiards halls or like the gambling houses did just like, you know, regular, you know, like, white Americans ever walk in there and be like, hey, can I gamble? Or did it have to be people that spoke Cantonese or that you're not.

[Mike Moy]

Chinese, you're not going in, Full stop. That's it. No, that's it. Full stop. That's it.

[Mark]

If I showed up and I was like, hey, I would like to play, it would just be like, hey, it's a private event.

[Mike Moy]

Nobody's gonna believe you. You don't know how to play pai gow in those days, in the 80s, you know how to play. You're not gonna find a non Asian who knows how to play pa Mahjong.

[Mark]

Oh, the games themselves kept people out.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. It's not like blackjack or baccarat.

[Mark]

Interesting. And then as like the baccarat comes in or like the, you know, the Electric Games. How is it even.

[Mike Moy]

Electric Games is in Chinese. All the buttons are in Chinese.

[Mark]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Mike Moy]

It's similar to like, you know, like the slot machines, but even I don't know how to play those games now it's in Chinese.

[Mark]

Oh, right. And you. And you only speak Cantonese.

[Mike Moy]

And I don't know how to read and write Chinese.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

I went to Chinese school when I was young, but only like the basic characters. Maybe I can identify a couple characters, but that's about it.

[Mark]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

Oh, wow. And then as far as the billiards hall, anyone could go in there. Or was that even still a little.

[Mike Moy]

Everyone can go in. Yeah. It's a commercial establishment.

[Mark]

Right. What was the most lucrative business?

[Mike Moy]

I would say it's all about. It's all about the same. I would say the gambling places. Of course, you know, the illegal business is the most lucrative, I'll tell you that. But the gambling, the pool hall at the junction. I was. It was. Let's talk about gross. Okay. So I was grossing anywhere from like 18 to 22, 23,000amonth. But then I was paying 6,000 in rent. And because it's 6,000 square foot area.

[Mark]

Yeah, it's a big.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. So I was paying 6,000 in rent. And then you subtract the, the, the labor people are hired to work there. Yeah. So it cost me. How much it cost me to open that pool up? Maybe about 170 around there. Yeah. But then the pool tables are paid off. And so it was just collecting money across the street. The collectibles, I was averaging around 20 grand gross. And that's just one side of the store, which is the cards and the, you know, the collectibles and T shirts and whatnot. And yeah, the rent over there at that time was for me, it was a thousand, one thousand because the, the other. My partner had the, the comic site, so he was paying a thousand. So it was 2000 for like a 1800 square foot store. And then I rented out the A booth to diamond for 800 selling the bootleg videos. So I was only paying 200 rent and I was taking in about 18, you know, about 20,000 because we had like video games also that generate money. So it was pretty lucrative, you know.

[Mark]

Oh, wow. And so were you using those legitimate businesses to wash the money from the illegal business.

[Mike Moy]

I think I was making more with the legitimate business besides the gambling, you know, besides the gambling house. Because, yeah, I was also dealing with the guns. I was getting the guns from the American blacks and getting the marijuana from the Jamaicans and then counterfeit money. You know, I had access to that. This Israeli guy, I was able to get counterfeit money from him. And also my Dai Lo. My Dai Lo's Dai Lo was able to get really good quality counterfeit money. I was into different things, you know, here and there throughout the years.

[Mark]

Did the counterfeit money come from mainland China?

[Mike Moy]

I don't know where it came from, but if I remember correctly, I. I don't know. I mean, if I remember correctly, maybe North Korea, I don't know. And it went to China and China and trickle over here.

[Mark]

I spoke to an FBI investigator who worked on a case dealing with counterfeit notes that came from North Korea and that they had. They had a perfect printing press.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. They had the threads and everything. It was perfect during that time. It was what, in the 90s? Early 90s, yeah. They had the blue and red threads. Can't even tell.

[Mark]

And like, there was at one point, I forget, what is the name of the note? It was like the. They called it like the Ultra Note. It was like a perfect one for one replica.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. It was going for 50 cents on the dollar, that one. Yeah.

[Mark]

And it was so good that they sent it to the internal FBI team and they couldn't. They didn't know which one was the fraudulent one.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

And even their internal investigators were like, we can't tell.

[Mike Moy]

And the pen, the counterfeit pen, it wasn't popular back then.

[Mark]

The counterfeit cigarettes was always an interesting one that they would have, like these Marlboros that would be made in China. And when they came over, it was interesting because this guy, Bob Hamer, he told me that a lot of Chinese Americans preferred the counterfeit because they grew up smoking the counterfeit Marlboros. And that if you gave them a real Marlboro, they'd be like, nah, I don't like the taste. And that they actually had, like, an affinity for the counterfeit. It was just so fascinating to me and just shows, like, how many counterfeit cigarettes were coming into these communities.

[Mike Moy]

Remember those 99 cent stores back in the days? Yeah. So I knew somebody who had a shipment of double A batteries shipped from China, and then he had the labels over here to wrap it around the Chinese batteries as a duracell. So these 99 cent stores are selling Duracell batteries. Five, six bucks and people were eating it up for a 20 foot container, each container he was making like $400,000 clean.

[Mark]

That's crazy. See these are the kinds of. Because I think so many people, they think about crime, they think about, you know, like extortion and gambling and drugs. But it's those little sort of things like you know, the counterfeit batteries, counterfeit cigarettes that can be so lucrative and the penalties for them aren't as great. Like if you're selling counterfeit batteries like you're not going to go to prison as if you're selling, you know, heroin. But you can still, you can sometimes make as much money doing, you know, like counterfeit stamps was another one that he had told me. Like, yeah, you can buy sheets of stamps for, you know, 20 cents of what they would cost per sheet. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer which is apparently a thing Mint Mobile unlimited premium wireless.

[Mike Moy]

30.

[Mark]

30.

[Mike Moy]

Better to get 30.

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

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[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

Extortion is for the soldiers, for the street kids, right? Yeah, I mean the protection money is the gambling houses is more for like the higher level, you know, just like with Kids Eye he was collecting 10,000 a week from each gambling house that he protected and there was like 11, so he was pulling in 110,000. But then we talk about restaurants for the kids for the 14, 15 year old street soldiers. You know, they go there, they'll eat for free, they'll sign the gang name and the dailo will pick it up. It's not like they're beating the restaurant for the money. The dailo actually picks up the tab, you know, dialo. They're not going to lose face. They don't want to lose face. They're going to pick up the tab.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

You know, it's to keep the economy going. There's so much drug money back then circulating within Chinatown, so everybody was flush with money.

[Mark]

So at the height of your operation, you're making money from the billiard hall, you're making money from the gambling house, from the collectibles and then some of the illegal activities. What do you think you were making per month? Everything all added in at the height.

[Mike Moy]

You know what? I never calculated how much I made, but I was always carrying money. And it just goes. The money just goes where it goes. Just goes. Believe me, it goes like. People wonder, like, how. Until I became a cop, then it's like. Then I realized after all those years, you know, you basically were paycheck to paycheck, you know, because a lot of guys and. And girls are living paycheck to paycheck. And then eventually, you know, I'm like, okay, so this is the life, you know? But it's a peace of mind. You get a peace of mind, and that's priceless.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Because no matter how much money you make back then, I don't care how many millions you make. I didn't make millions, but you know, it's gonna go.

[Mark]

It could.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, just end up like that. And most of them spend it on gambling. Because in the Chinese community, gambling is a big thing. Because think about it. You could pick up the phone and place a bet for $100,000 on the game, or you can go to a gambling house with a suitcase full of money and lose it in the night. My sister Ping, she had relatives I'm not going to mention who, but goes to the gambling house and drop over a hundred thousand a night and come back the next day to pay off whatever he. The marker, and then he'll gamble again.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

It's like unlimited money. But when you're making money.

[Mark]

Yeah. Who cares?

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Gambling is a big thing in the Asian community. Like, how can you. Even if you have a drug habit or whatever, you can snort a hundred thousand dollars a night.

[Mark]

That's a great point, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Any other habit, you know, any other addiction, there's a limit. There's a bodily limit. But with gambling, you do a million, it just. You could do as much as you want.

[Mike Moy]

That's the worst addiction, gambling.

[Mark]

Right. Because there's no limit to it.

[Mike Moy]

They say only 2% succeed in, you know, quitting gambling, but 40% can succeed in quitting all the substance abuse.

[Mark]

Wow, that is fascinating. Was it stressful for you in that time because you have these legitimate businesses that are making great money and that you could just live off that and everything's great, but then you also have the criminal element. And was that starting to scare you and towards the later years.

[Mike Moy]

It'S stressful because I own a car service that ran 24 hours, seven days a week, and the pool didn't close until like 4 or 5am in the morning until the last customer leave. Sometimes, you know, on the weekends, like that, weekdays. So it's always. Yeah, stressful, especially when people try to test us. Then the shootings in there, I mean, if you come into the pool hall, if you notice there's bullet holes all over. That's only if you pay attention to these things.

[Mark]

And where would the test come from? Was it from rival gangs or was it just from patrons that wanted to see if they could, you know, see.

[Mike Moy]

What they can get away with? See what they can get away with.

[Mark]

And how do you deal with someone that's trying to test the pool hall?

[Mike Moy]

It's in my book. It's my book. Diamond had a lot to do with it too.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Because like I said, it was. If you go back into that era, it was pretty wild, especially the kids coming from the Vanderweer, you know, in a high crime area, the. The private housing development. So they. They came over.

[Mark]

So then what? Ultimately.

[Mike Moy]

And the drug dealers came over. But they tried to deal with drugs. They tried to deal cocaine out of my place.

[Mark]

I mean, you can't have that.

[Mike Moy]

No.

[Mark]

Because now you're bringing all this attention, you're bringing police, you're bringing heat.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

And so you got to get these guys out of there.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Gotta get them out.

[Mark]

Interesting. And Diamond, I'm sure, was. Was. Was helpful in that regard.

[Mike Moy]

Yes. I named the pool hall after him. Diamond. Diamond Billiards.

[Mark]

Oh, wow. Do you still keep in touch with diamond today?

[Mike Moy]

Of course. Of course. Yeah.

[Mark]

But he's not able to come back.

[Mike Moy]

To the U.S. no, he can't.

[Mark]

When was the last time you saw him?

[Mike Moy]

I go there a couple of times. I've been there a couple of times when he gets in trouble.

[Mark]

To Guyana.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, he gets in trouble. I'm always there for him. I mean, he. Diamond is Diamond. Yeah. That's awesome. I think he got arrested twice over there. I had to bail him out.

[Mark]

Oh, really? You Flew over there to bail him out.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, I take care of him. He's my brother.

[Mark]

Oh, that's a real one.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Wow.

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

I'm not a materialistic guy. Like me, I'm like a minimalist, so I don't want anything in excess, you know, So I use the money more for experiences.

[Mark]

Like what?

[Mike Moy]

Use your imagination.

[Mark]

I'm imagining. Did you go on trips? Like, did you fly around the world?

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Around the world, yeah. Been all over. Yeah. Gambling. That's probably where most of my money went. But it was a phase I went through. Because when you have money, you gamble more, you know, like, you could be pushing out $10,000 a game, but when you have no money, you're not making that kind of money, you'll be betting black chips, and then eventually it goes to green chips and red chips. It just all depends how much you make.

[Mark]

What was the best. The best night that you had gambling? What was your biggest win? Do you remember?

[Mike Moy]

I lose more than I win. Okay.

[Mark]

That's how it's supposed to work.

[Mike Moy]

I'm the type of gambler who. Who's afraid to win, but not afraid to lose. They are those type of gamblers. But my win, probably like 65,000. I remember walking away with 65,000 at the back of the table. My friend, I think he had like $500 and he turned it into $90,000. Right. So Cabahead, he's on my channel. I'll let him tell the story on my channel. One day, Chinatown gang stories on YouTube and his friend needed to use the restroom, Right? So while waiting for his friend to come out from the restroom, he went back to the Bacrat table and he lost all that 90,000. No, like that. Just like that. That's how fast the game backrat is.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Do you know the game?

[Mark]

I. Not really. I see people play, but I've never played.

[Mike Moy]

So for those who know how to play baccarat, I have a story where I went to Atlantic City. I didn't even sit down at the table. I dropped $5,000 on the table, and by the time they counted out, I didn't even sit down yet. Put $5,000 on players. Right? So the person, of course, when we put $25 on the bank, bet against me. And I was looking at the cards. I sat down, look at the cards. It was two side. Two side. The first one was a four. No, the first one was a five, and then the second card was a four. So it's natural. Nine. So I won 5,000. I doubled up to 10,000. The person across from me did the same thing. Bet $25 against my $10,000 hand. Now and again, I looked at the card. The first one was a five, and the second one had a four. That's. I'll never forget.

[Mark]

Did you look at him when he won?

[Mike Moy]

It was a female. And I just took the money and I left.

[Mark]

Oh, that's so funny.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Two hands.

[Mark]

That's all you needed.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

I would have felt so stupid if I lost it. $25.

[Mark]

Put your hat down and leave. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. Because in baccarat, there is a interpersonal kind of element where there's people kind of working with you and against you.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. I Mean the casino. You betting the casino is paying you, you know, and why would you bet against me if I'm you, you know, I'm bend that kind of money. Just. Just be spiteful, you know.

[Mark]

Right. Does it ever get personal if you're in like a private baccarat room or like at a.

[Mike Moy]

At a. I don't take it personal, but some people, like, be screaming, yelling, and starting a fight. Oh, you're betting against me. Like, they get. Throw a temper tantrum. But really, me, I don't care.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

You do what you want. It doesn't affect me, but, you know, it's just. I find it entertaining.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

I mean, it could have went the other way. Then I'll be stupid, but it's all right.

[Mark]

Have you heard stories in gambling houses where someone makes too much money and the gambling house has to, you know, they have to scramble or there becomes like a problem. If someone really, you know, runs a table in baccarat and they make, you know, 2, 300,000, would the gambling house have to, you know, stop it or say, hey, we'll pay you later? Does that ever happen in the private gambling houses?

[Mike Moy]

Usually it's controlled. Controlled. Like nowadays they give like a. Like a marker. You go in there and they know where you're from. They know what business you own, for example. They know how much you bet. They know your betting habits, your betting limits, you know, because they don't just let strangers in. They know who you are. They know your background. So let's say they give you a credit line for like 20,000. You lose the 20,000. Okay. You pay the 20,000 first, and then you get another credit line. So usually that's how they operate now, by giving out the line of credit. Otherwise, who's going to come to you? Nobody's going to bring 20,000 to. Back in those days, yeah, they bring cash. But then over the years, it transitioned into like, like a. Like a form of a marker.

[Mark]

They can throttle it a little bit.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. But as far as those stories, I never heard of it because I didn't deal with that kind of money because my gambling house had like. And when I protected the gambling house as a kid, I didn't care. Like, I wasn't into that. So I didn't pay attention to that. It's like, because they were older than me, I was like 16, 17, 18 years old. And these guys are like 40, 50.

[Mark]

You're a soldier.

[Mike Moy]

So I wasn't watching how they play or whatever. It didn't fascinate me until I, you know, got a taste of it when I went to Atlantic City. And then my gambling house had four mahjong tables and a poker table that I can use for like Chinese poker or blackjack.

[Mark]

Now, you had mentioned that gambling within the Asian community is very popular.

[Mike Moy]

Of course. Because when you come to this country and you don't speak a word of English, right. And you're looking at the 70s and 80s during that time, what are you going to do? Right. Your form of entertainment is going to be gambling or watching a movie in a movie theater. That's why there's so many movie theaters in Chinatown, you know, showcasing movies from Hong Kong. You had Music Palace, Pagoda Theater, Sunset Theater and Rosemary Theater and a couple of other theaters, you know, in that vicinity, because that's their only form of entertainment. Right. The other form is to go out to a restaurant and have dinner. The money that they make, they're not going to go to a Broadway show or a Disney cruise.

[Mark]

Right. And on top of that, a Broadway show will be in English.

[Mike Moy]

Exactly.

[Mark]

So it's like, what is the point?

[Mike Moy]

Exactly.

[Mark]

Interesting. So is gambling for, I guess, Asians or Asian Americans in the United States more popular than it is in mainland China?

[Mike Moy]

It's illegal to gamble in China.

[Mark]

Completely.

[Mike Moy]

There's no casino in China.

[Mark]

Oh, wow. I mean, Hong Kong, there must be casinos, right?

[Mike Moy]

Macau, they go to Macau.

[Mark]

Macau, right.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Macau is the gambling capital of the world. Right, yeah. Because the people from mainland China will go over there.

[Mark]

But it's like a destination, though.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

And they have other things to do, I presume. Whereas in the United States, you know, it's film and, you know, other types of social activities. Oh, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. But I'm sure there must have been like, you know, other forms of, like Chinese entertainment. Whether it be like, you know, like a singing club or, you know, like a concert venue or other types of live entertainment for Chinatown and Chinese Americans.

[Mike Moy]

The movie theaters in Chinatown, back in those days, they have the live Chinese opera. Ah, yeah, we went to a couple of those that my grandma used to take me to.

[Mark]

But this would be like something that older people would do.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

I see. So if you're like a, you know, 20, maybe 30 year old, you know, Chinese person living in America, it's like, what can I do?

[Mike Moy]

Go to the game room. Chinatown Fair, right?

[Mark]

You said Chinatown Fair. That's what it was called.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, it's on my street. Check it out.

[Mark]

Is it still there?

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Moy]

Check out the history. How long it's been there. Chinatown Fair Arcade.

[Mark]

Oh wow, that's cool. And is it all similar games that we have here? Are they completely different games?

[Mike Moy]

They're the standalone video games that I remember dropping quarters into. I don't know how much it is now. I haven't played a video game for a long time. The last time I played the video games was probably the home console was. I remember Atari 2600. You're too young.

[Mark]

Yeah, yeah. That was before my time.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Atari 2600.

[Mark]

What are the best. What were like the Chinese restaurants you would go to in Chinatown that were like notorious gang spots?

[Mike Moy]

Wahop.

[Mark]

Wohop is. I've been to Wohop.

[Mike Moy]

Wohp. Yep.

[Mark]

And that was like a legendary spot.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. One of a kid sized crew member. I spotted two eagles in there, drag them out one by one and shot him dead right outside the restaurant in broad daylight. Okay. Why? A lot of people don't understand like the Chinese culture mentality. He could have shot them dead in the restaurant, the Ghost Showers, but they knew the owner, they had respect for the owner, you know, so they dragged him out and shot him outside the restaurant.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Just like the case with one of my fellow gang members. We used to hang out in Triangle Pool Hall, Triangle Billiards, right off King's Highway. And two ghost shadows came in and check my friend. And he fought back and was able to grab the gun away from the ghost, the two ghost shadows. And now he's chasing after them instead of shooting them inside the pool hole. He would do the shooting outside because he had too much respect for the old man, the white guy, the Italian guy, because they always give us table time. You see what I'm saying? So it's all about respect. You respect us, we respect you.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

The shooting could have happened inside the pool hall. The shooting could have happened inside the restaurant.

[Mark]

But then you lose face. You disrespect.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mark]

Yeah. I mean that's something. That kidjai was telling me that there was one time he was walking into a restaurant and he was holding the door open for a woman and. And her kid and a guy was in the rain and he kind of like ran in and kind of pushed them out of the way and ran into the restaurant and he was just so offended by the lack of respect for a woman and her kid that he saw the guy eating. He waited till he was done eating and then they went outside and he handled it and kind of, you know, kind of, you know, intimidated him, kind of shook him up a little and was like, don't be disrespecting people specifically within our community. Don't be disrespecting women and children when you're going into a restaurant. And it wasn't for any type of gang related thing. It was just the fact that he saw a guy being disrespectful and how important respect is to him. He was like, you can't do that.

[Mike Moy]

A lot of people died in Chinatown because of disrespecting somebody else.

[Mark]

Yeah. The respect component, I think is interesting that within criminal organizations you have a code of honor and respect and never leaving behind your brothers, but also simultaneously kind of operating a legal business. And that these two things coexist in harmony. And that I think it actually exposes something that's fundamental to human beings is that, you know, not betraying people close to you is fundamental and goes across the board, even beyond crime or anything like that.

[Mike Moy]

Or if you make a promise or you give your word to somebody. Have you ever heard of Pashtunwali?

[Mark]

Right. You were mentioning something like that. And can you explain Pashtunwali?

[Mike Moy]

And it's very admirable.

[Mark]

You know, could you explain the idea.

[Mike Moy]

Of Pashtunwali better for you to explain it? Yeah, you know about it, right?

[Mark]

You were telling me before this idea in Afghanistan that within the Taliban, the United States or the US Military as combat would happen, that the Afghans would protect one guy and they would risk the entire tribe and the livelihood of everyone else to protect even just one member, and that no one would get left behind. And it was this principle of Pashtunwali that they would risk everything to not let one person down because they have their word.

[Mike Moy]

Isn't that admirable?

[Mark]

Yeah, absolutely. And regardless of if it's a criminal organization or a government that seems like it's at odds with America, I think you can look at, you know, all of these different people and say they're operating by a code of honor, which I think is. Yeah, it's on its. On its face, it's very admirable.

[Mike Moy]

See, we. We had nobody, right, except to protect our own. Especially back then. Chinatown, all you had was Manhattan's Chinatown. There was only one chinatown in the 70s. So where are you gonna go? That's your family. The Chinese gang kids, the Dai Lo would get an apartment for them to stay in, several apartments. So they all grouped together. They live together. They don't go home to their parents. So they're able to form that bond because they're spending so much time together. Day in and day out, as opposed to the other ethnic groups. You have the local street gangs like the blacks, the Hispanics, the Italians, the teenagers. At the end of the day, they go home to their family. Most of them, I'm saying. But the Asian gang kids, they're out there living in a group just like the Vietnamese, the refugees. It's a different era now. But if you go back to that time when all these kids were refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, what they went through, how their lives were disrupted during the Khmer Rouge, with the Vietnam War going on.

[Mark]

The bombings in Laos.

[Mike Moy]

The bombing in Laos, right. They came here with nobody. They don't have a family, parents are killed, they're in an orphanage, they get shipped over here, maybe sponsored by the church or whatever. The sponsors get them here, help them out, and then after that they're out to fend for themselves. There's no job opportunities for them and they don't speak the language. It's hard for them to fit in.

[Mark]

Education, everything.

[Mike Moy]

So they resort to crime. They don't want to. They had no choice, some of them. What would you do in that situation? If you get thrown to Vietnam and you have to start a new life over there and you don't have any parents, who's your family?

[Mark]

Yeah, I would do whatever it takes. And if the people I'm with are like, hey, here's what we do.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, right. So those were the kids that I was with. I was with a lot of Cambodians, you know, Lao, Asian and Vietnamese. And the Chinese. Remember the time period, people coming from China during that time, they were dirt poor, otherwise they wouldn't risk their life to come to the United States. As opposed to now. People coming from China into this country, they have money, right?

[Mark]

They buy apartments and they can live good lives.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

In that time it was not the case.

[Mike Moy]

No.

[Mark]

Was there any, like, internationality, conflict or misunderstanding that would happen amongst, you know, Chinese people that immigrated versus Vietnamese or Cambodian? Or was it all like, hey, we're all coming from a similar circumstance, so we're just going to stick together regardless of the differences.

[Mike Moy]

There was a conflict between the Chinese and the Vietnamese gang, the btk. When the BTK formed, originally they were known as the Canal Boys. Eventually this guy named David Dai started this group called the Canal Boys. Got all the Vietnamese together. So a lot of the Vietnamese from the Fuch Cheng, from the Flying Dragons and Gou Shaos, they all flocked over to be with David Dai, to be.

[Mark]

Under David Dai and that kind of united things.

[Mike Moy]

And they didn't follow the traditional unwritten street rules that the Chinese gangs had all those years. They didn't follow those rules. They were hungry. They wanted a piece of Chinatown. The Chinese gangs gave it to them. There's so much money to be made in Chinatown. They can have Canal Street. They had no problems with that, but they did things differently. And that's what caused the gang war. If you read the book, it's in there.

[Mark]

Everything about the Canal Boys and the Chinese gangs, that whole conflict is laid out.

[Mike Moy]

Mm. They. They did things differently. They bombed the police van. Yeah. That brought attention to all the gangs.

[Mark]

Yeah. I mean, made everything, I'm sure, way more scrutinized.

[Mike Moy]

They refused to have a sit down with Uncle Seven. You know, Uncle Seven wanted to keep things quiet and David Ty refused to sit down. It's on my channel. I interviewed Teardrop. He was a BTK member. He elaborated on that. The things they did, they were wild. They didn't care. They took violence to a different level. Even the war between them and the Ghost Shadows. There was a shooting. They killed the second in command. They shot him dead. And then at the funeral, the Ghost Shells went to the cemetery and shot him up. There was over 100 shots fired between the BTK and the Ghost Shadows at the cemetery. Yeah. It's in the newspaper. Look it up. Remember a lot of things the Chinese did, the Asian gangs did. It didn't make the papers. So if you look during that time period, there's a lot of articles, but it didn't make the front page because the Italians took the front page of the news. The Italian Mafia. So we were always like in the police blotter or maybe in the middle of the newspaper page. Two, three or whatever. But there's a lot of articles. But think about how many went unreported. So imagine how wild it was back then.

[Mark]

I mean, crazy. But again, that's probably good for business. Right. Like, you can. Something can happen, a violent outbreak can occur, but it's not going to bring so much attention because a lot of it's getting deviated to other places. So it probably lets things kind of continue to grow for better or for worse.

[Mike Moy]

Because of that war. Gang war. There was an innocent bystander, a tourist. They got shot and killed. Yeah. In Chinatown.

[Mark]

That's a big issue.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. That's when the police cracked down.

[Mark]

Right. And did that disrupt the gangs ultimately? Like, was it starting there that it kind of started to get a little bit fragmented from the police?

[Mike Moy]

That was the beginning to the end. I already Knew it was gonna. It was going to end after the tourists got shot and killed. I knew. And the police van got bombed. I knew it was going to come to end soon.

[Mark]

And is that what initiated some of your desire to leave that life?

[Mike Moy]

No, no. I mean, there's other reasons, other variables. It's not just one particular reason. But I want to mention the story about this young cop at the time, Stephen McDonald. He was shot by a teenage kid and left a quadriplegic. And I was following his story throughout the years because I was always looking in the newspaper for any articles about us. So I came across this story, and by the time the case went to court, he forgave the kid who shot him. He forgave him. I tried to wrap that around my head, like, in my world you don't forgive. And then he made a statement that I read in the newspaper at the time. He forgave him because this kid was a product of his environment. I was young, I didn't know what that meant. This is the first time I ever heard about that term, you're a product of your environment. And then I thought to myself, I remember thinking to myself, am I a product of my environment? Do I. I can't understand how he can forgive somebody who did that to him. For me, I will get my revenge no matter how long it takes. Even if I have to wait for him to come out from jail, from prison, I'll wait or have somebody get to him like that. So it wasn't in my mindset. So then I realized maybe my way of thinking is wrong, you know, So I did a lot of self reflection. And that's another reason why I didn't get into hard drugs as well. Because, you know, when you get into hard drugs, you gotta make a decision, you know, because at that time, you kill somebody, you get caught, you get a chance to come out pretty quick, if you get a good lawyer, you know, self defense, whatever, manslaughter. But you deal with drugs, getting locked up for a long time, especially heroin, because I had access to it and my dialo had access to it. But luckily my dialo turned it down. But that's another story. So going Back to Stephen McDonald. Yeah. So I try to wrap it around my head, like that's not how I grew up. I grew up like watching these movies about revenge. And so I'm like thinking maybe doing the right thing is a good thing because I've been doing all these bad things when I'm out there. So I guess he planted the seed in my mind. So I took that police examination. I didn't think anything of it. That was probably 1990. I took the exam. Yeah. And then in 1993, they called me. I got the letter to go in and the phone call, but I wasn't ready because I was making money out there and I wasn't ready. So I turned it down. And then by the time 1994 rolled around, they called me again, say, hey, this is your last chance. Your list is going to expire. You want the job? And by that time, a lot of my friends either got killed, they were in prison. And the gangs, as we know it, was already over because the feds picked them up by 94. And. Yeah, so I decided, you know, and I remember that I gotta get out of this environment, you know, even before that, I'm like, I just needed to get out some. Like, how, how do you get out? You're so deep into it. Like, how do I get out? You know, I was thinking maybe the military, you know, or the police department. So I took the police test and see what happened. And then they actually called me.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Yes. And then I got sworn in in June of 95, and I went into a police academy for nine months. Nobody knew about it. I didn't say a word to nobody, anybody, you know. And is it after nine months, came out, still didn't say anything. I got assigned to the 66th Precinct. And then from there they sent me. Being that I was a rookie, they sent me to a detail at a park, Prospect Park. So I was there for like another four months. Came back.

[Mark]

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[Mike Moy]

And had different various footposts around the area. I remember there was a hospital that was on strike. So I was there for a while. So it wasn't until probably about a little over maybe a year before I got assigned to work in Chinatown. So I basically disappeared for like a year between the police academy, the foot post, before I got assigned to Chinatown.

[Mark]

What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because your food sucks. That's right. We live in a country where, unfortunately, a lot of the food we eat, even if you try to eat clean is pesticides and seed oils and who knows what else is in your, you know, your Caesar wrap. And that is why it is important to supplement your food. This is what I do on a daily basis, and I do it with Symbiotica. Yes, I love symbiotica because it is the easiest way for me to supplement my food and get all the nutrients that I need that I should be getting for my food, but unfortunately, I don't because, you know, the world and capitalism or whatever. But with Symbiotica, I'm able to get my magnesium, which I take every single night. That helps me to sleep. I take my colostrum, which is great for my gut health. It helps my skin, and it gives me an immune boost. And the thing that I'm most excited about is mineral shilajita. Shilajit is an ancient mineral resin that literally comes from the Himalayas. It sounds crazy, but it's not. It's right here in this little jar. Just a little dab into some warm water. And since I've been taking it, I mean, it's full of, like, fulvic acid, you know, trace minerals, all the stuff you should be getting from your food, but you're not. And since I've been taking it, I feel sharper. My energy is more consistent and stable. I'm not reaching for the third coffee. Instead, the shilajit keeps me locked in. Another thing I love about Symbiotica is that instead of taking a handful of pills and people look at you like a crazy person, they just. They actually get curious. They see you taking this awesome little liquid gel pac. Tastes amazing, they go, oh, what? What is that?

[Mike Moy]

What?

[Mark]

What? What are you taking right there? And I tell them I'm taking my Symbiotica for my health because I'm trying to live till I'm 180 years old. So if you're interested in reclaiming your health for the summer, feeling better, having more stable energy, and doing it in the tastiest way possible, go to symbiotica.com camp. Use the promo code camp, and you will get 20 off your order and free shipping. If you go to symbiotica.com camp or click on, you know the description. You'll see the links right there, or even in the bottom of this banner. Now, let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We need to talk. Skincare. That's right. If you've ever heard me on flagrant or even on this show, I have talked about my love for beef tallow. Yes, I'm not talking about some, you know, lab made sludge with 39 syllables and a bunch of chemicals and stuff. I'm talking about good old fashioned beef tallow. Just, yes, it's cow fat. I know it sounds crazy, but there's a reason that people have used this for thousands of years. This is the moisturizer that your ancestors used before, you know, big lotion and chemicals and pharma companies came and messed it all up with seed oil scams and chemical cocktails. All right, Tallow has been used for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians walking through the desert, they put on beef tallow to make their skin look good and feel good and not crack and actually hold up in the elements. Greeks and Romans, they used it to heal wounds and keep their skin from looking, you know, like papyrus. And even your great, great grandma, she probably used it, I don't know. And here's the great thing with beef towel. It's got a bunch of, you know, fat soluble, you know, vitamins A, D, E and K. And it actually mimics your skin's natural oils because it comes from a living thing. That means your body recognizes and says, oh, yeah, this is good stuff. And you don't have some crazy reaction. And, you know, not like the 90 serums that smell like eucalyptus or whatever. I use it, my wife steals it, my baby uses it. Everyone in the family looks good and feels good with the power of beef tallow. So right before bed, I literally just take like a little finger full, wipe it in my hands and rub it on my face. And you kind of spread it in evenly. It comes in a bunch of great flavors. It smells amazing. And when I wake up, I feel moisturized and refreshed. And if you're interested, you can go now and get the best beef tallow on the market. I'll be honest, all beef tallow is basically the same. You know, it all is great stuff. It's all very natural. This one is natural just like the rest. But this one is 30% off when you go to Evil Goods. That's right. When you go to evil Goods, you subscribe. Just click the link at the top of the video description or go to evilgoods.com camp. Do it for your skin, do it for the cow, do it for your ancestors. All right, let's get back to the show. I'm curious. Did you talk to your parents at all about joining the police force? Like, did they, did they have any idea of what your, you know, history was before that?

[Mike Moy]

They don't ask any Questions because when I was in the gang, I was rebellious already. They know not to ask.

[Mark]

And then you stop coming home. You're staying at the house?

[Mike Moy]

Yes. If I come home, it'll be like passing by or come home and then I'll head back out again. And if I stay home, sometimes I'll come home all bruised and beaten up. You know, they know not to ask because they know I'm not going to answer them. They know I'm not going to answer their questions. You know, sometimes I'll come home with a bag full of, you know, illegal stuff. They're not going to ask. You know, they're not going to ask.

[Mark]

And what kind of work if they find it, what kind of work did they do? Your parents?

[Mike Moy]

My, my mom worked in a factory when she was younger. And then my father, he's sort of like day labor. Yeah, he's like a handyman. He could fix anything. He's an electrician, plumber, you name it, he can do it. So I mean he grew up dirt poor, poor way. He was like, I guess he's self made, you know, he is very frugal. If you see him in the street, you would think he's like a bum. He had no money because he would still be wearing the same clothes after all these years and he wouldn't spend money on, on himself. Like, let's put it this way, he would if, if, if a house is burned down, he can rebuild it, round up.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

That's how handy is.

[Mark]

And he's a minimalist like you.

[Mike Moy]

No, he's not.

[Mark]

He's not.

[Mike Moy]

He's more like a hoarder.

[Mark]

Oh, he's a hoarder.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. Because he's frugal.

[Mark]

Right. So anytime he gets something he's like, we're gonna fix it.

[Mike Moy]

Like instead of like, like buying a TV stand, he'll build one, you know, like sort of like that. Oh, wow. So that's where me and him are at odds. Okay. So over the years, like he would buy houses and he would build them, fix it and sell it and eventually he was able to own multiple properties, you know, self made and they would rent it out. So you know, he has a quite a few properties in Brooklyn.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. And then now he's older, you know, so he can't tend to it as much. He had a six family. Multiple, two families. And that's amazing. Yeah. Self made.

[Mark]

And did they.

[Mike Moy]

Let's put it this way, I like, I would, I could never make the amount of money he made. Think about a Contractor.

[Mark]

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Especially if you can make money if.

[Mark]

You'Re good and you've been in it.

[Mike Moy]

A long time, those days. Yeah. And if you buy. His first house he bought was 35,000, 40,000. I remember. You know, get a house like that in Brooklyn. You can't get anything in Brooklyn nowadays for that kind of money. And then I think his second house was like 180,000, right by Avenue P&E16. And then he bought a six family on Avenue S, right by the school, around East 14, around there. And then he bought another two family in Brighton beach when he was making money. But he's very frugal. He never took a vacation, never went anywhere. You know, very stubborn.

[Mark]

Just works and took care of the family.

[Mike Moy]

No, he work and he used the money, buy houses. I'm like, that's where me and him are at odds. Like, he, like, he wouldn't spend the money, go out and have a nice family dinner. When I was a kid growing up, we would always be eating at home. It's like, you don't get to. We don't get to enjoy the little things, you know, like, he never took me to see a movie. My uncle was the one who took me to see my first American movie, Star Wars. We never went on a vacation. Didn't know what a hotel room looked like with my father. So that's the type of life he lived, a very frugal life. But, you know.

[Mark]

So when you joined the police force, did you tell them?

[Mike Moy]

I don't tell them anything. If, if. If they see me coming home in my recruit uniform. Yeah. Then I think the only person who really knew was for me was my sister. Because I needed somebody to. To give me a reference. I need a reference to put down. So I gave my sister a heads up.

[Mark]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Moy]

I'm not going to advertise anything to anybody.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

Keep yourself to myself.

[Mark]

Did you ever tell Diamond?

[Mike Moy]

No, I didn't tell diamond until many years later. I think I had like a couple of years as a cop before I flew over to Guyana. I had to tell him in person, though, because Diamond's a gangster. He has nothing to do with the cops. He's a gangster. Gangster, yeah. So I told him in person. I flew to Guyana.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

And had to tell him in person.

[Mark]

And what did he say?

[Mike Moy]

He goes, mike, that's a hard pill to swallow. But he accepted it. But he thinks, mike, that ain't you, Mike. He goes, I remember he says, mike, that ain't you. I Know that ain't you. He goes, you must have went in to infiltrate the nypd, right? I go, no, Diamond, I don't know. It's not what you think. He goes, that's a hard pill to swallow. But he accepted it because we were that close, right?

[Mark]

It's your brother.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

Wow. So in the first couple years that you're on the force, what kind of tasks were you assigned? What sort of cases were you following?

[Mike Moy]

You mean as a detective or as a rookie cop?

[Mark]

I guess as a rookie cop, but then later as a detective.

[Mike Moy]

As a rookie copier. Footpost most of the time. Back in those days, it's different than now. You gotta be on footpost. You don't get to ride in the car right away. You gotta pay your dues.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

It's mostly on my foot post. Walking up and down Chinatown, seeing the.

[Mark]

Same people, I'm sure, that you grew up with.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

And how did they treat you when they saw you in the uniform?

[Mike Moy]

It's in my book. Oh, wow. Bad to blue.

[Mark]

And then once you're a detective, what cases are you getting?

[Mike Moy]

As a detective? Working in a squad, you get everything. Everything comes your way. And then the only thing I don't deal with is sex crime. If a sex crime come my way, it goes to special victims.

[Mark]

But robbery.

[Mike Moy]

Everything comes my way. Homicide, everything, it comes my way. And then if it's a special case, it goes into specialized units. But mostly we're the lead detectives.

[Mark]

So in your time as a detective, which was a long time, what are some of the cases that you were most proud of?

[Mike Moy]

Most proud of? Well, there was a case where this kid was targeting a non Asian kid. Was targeting Asian females, robbing them, I think I charged him with like 16 counts of robbery. Yeah, he was robbing these Asian females walking the street late at night in Chinatown, taking their handbag, take the money and throw away the handbag. So we recovered a lot of handbags like Chanel, Louis Vuitton. This kid didn't know that the handbags were worth thousands of dollars. But meanwhile, he would take the couple hundred dollars and he's happy with that.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

So, yeah, so that's one of the cases. It's in my book.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

And then there's another case. There was this Hispanic kid that committed a robbery and there was a shooting involved. The guy got injured and I arrested him. He was a juvenile. He came out after a couple years. He didn't do that long. A couple years. And I was working one day and I was at another precinct. To do something. I forgot what it was. I had to leave my precinct to go to another precinct. And I was a detective at the time, and I was in a suit and tie, and this kid was walking up towards me. I'm like, wondering who this kid is. So I was, you know, I was very alert, you know, And I'm wondering, why is this kid walking towards me? But he didn't walk up towards me in a threatening manner, but I still kept my guards up. And he came up to me and says, do you remember me? I go, no. He goes, I'm so and so. You arrested me for that shooting. I did, years ago. I go, okay, now I remember. How you doing? And he offered his hand to me for a handshake and shook my hand. He said, I want to thank you for what I said, for treating me with respect. Yeah. So I said, I hope you change your life around. He goes, yeah, man, I'm not about that no more. I said, I'm happy for you, you know. Change your life around. Yeah.

[Mark]

I mean, that's powerful. Like that one action maybe changed his life, his kid's life.

[Mike Moy]

Exactly.

[Mark]

Wow. Yeah, that must be really rewarding. As a police officer.

[Mike Moy]

That was a rewarding moment for me, you know?

[Mark]

Yeah, that's. Yeah. That must be profound to see people that you experienced at their lowest moment, you know, when they were at a point where they were kind of at rock bottom. And then to see them turn it.

[Mike Moy]

Around, because I came from there.

[Mark]

Right? That was you at one point, you know.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. That's why when I was out there in Chinatown, walking my beat, I used a lot of discretion. I could have locked up a lot of people. And there's some stories I didn't even put in my book, you know, and that's why I get a lot of respect in Chinatown.

[Mark]

Did your history in crime affect your ability to get the job at all? Did they ask you and investigate your background and was that an issue when joining the police force?

[Mike Moy]

As far as my background check, yeah. They're very thorough. They have a checklist, right? You go to the checklist, interview your neighbors, you know, see if you have any debt, see if you have, you know, summonses, see your past work, history, education. I remember I had to go back there over a dozen times to my investigator and report to my investigator, like over a dozen times. But on paper, got nothing on me, right? So called model minority. Maybe that played an effect. And I was always in the suit. Like, if you see some of my old pictures, I didn't dress like your typical gangster, dressed like a businessman. Right. And they probably follow me around, right? They see how I dress and the people I was dealing with. But I was at the heart of Flatbush. I was the owner of that establishment. So of course there's going to be undesirables going in and out of that location, Right? So that's my speculation. I mean, they did visit and make phone calls to the neighbors and your sister. And my sister, the. The owner of the laundromat that I use to. For dry cleaning my clothes.

[Mark]

Oh, really?

[Mike Moy]

You know, they went there, but what are they going to say about me? Yeah, what's my neighbor going to say? I don't want to talk to my neighbors.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

I remember I had maybe like four years on the job at the time. I was a cop for four years already. I went for an interview because I made a bribery arrest. And when you make a bribery arrest, that's another story in my book. Some guy offered me he was going to open a prostitution house and offer me a bribe. And any girls I want every month to watch, protect his gambling house. I was a cop in uniform in Chinatown. So when I make an arrest like that, they offer me to go any way I want in the department. They asked me where you want to go. So I went for an interview. I picked a detail that I wanted to go to. I was interested in the department, actually take care of you if you make an arrest like that. I didn't believe it, but they actually do. So they interviewed me. The person who interviewed me was a lieutenant. During the course of the interview, she asked where I lived. She was shocked when she found out I lived right across the street from her on the same block, and she didn't know I was a cop.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

You know how some people. You're a cop, you want to flaunt it.

[Mark]

You show everybody.

[Mike Moy]

Because I always see, like, there's a couple of cops who live on my block, right? And I always see cop cars parked there. You know, they come home, say hello to their family. But I don't advertise it. I don't want people to know I'm a cop. Even my own neighbors don't know I'm a cop.

[Mark]

Now, is that on purpose or is that just because.

[Mike Moy]

No, that's just me, my purpose.

[Mark]

That's just how you are. You keep to yourself no matter what. I keep to myself either doing crime or as law enforcement. You keep everything to yourself.

[Mike Moy]

Exactly.

[Mark]

Yeah. That's really interesting.

[Mike Moy]

I'm a very private person. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for the book. Because I feel that it's more important to preserve this piece of history. And nobody's doing it. This is a way gone. It'll be swept under the rug. Just want to let people know how it was back then.

[Mark]

And Chinatown gang stories, the YouTube channel, does an amazing job of creating an actual documented library of all the people that actually experienced this part of history. The good parts and the bad parts.

[Mike Moy]

It's hard to get a former gang member to deal with a former cop. They want nothing to do with that. But most of the guys on my channel, I grew up with them, they trust me. It wasn't for that level of trust and respect. They wouldn't come out and talk on this channel. They wouldn't come on my channel and talk about their experiences.

[Mark]

Yeah, it requires a lot of mutual trust that, hey, you're not going to, you know, make me look bad. You're not going to malign me, you're not going to disrespect me just because I had this experience in crime. You know, there's a mutual. But also at the same time, they're not going to disrespect you because you chose law enforcement. You know, like some. Some guys would see that as a bad thing, but there's a mutual respect that goes both ways. That's really cool. Did you ever have anyone on your channel that you arrested?

[Mike Moy]

No.

[Mark]

That would be an interesting conversation. I wonder if you know anyone that's still, you know, out in Chinatown that you had arrested. Maybe someone like this kid that turned his life around.

[Mike Moy]

He's non Asian. He's non Asian, Right. He's not an Asian gang member. He's Hispanic. Maybe there's a possibility. You make me. Yeah, there's a kid that I arrested that maybe he would come on his channel. We'll see.

[Mark]

Did your. How did your experience in crime make you a better cop? Because I'm sure you could think like how criminals think and that probably made you a better detective.

[Mike Moy]

I don't think it would make me a better detective. I think it may made me be able to deal with people better, especially because I'm around the criminal element. I know how they think. So when I make the arrest, I know their mindset, you know, I understand their mindset. So I definitely don't get lax, keep my guards up, be alert, make sure if I'm going to search you, I'm going to search you thoroughly. And I'm going to be reading your body language because they can sense advantage, they can sense weakness, or when you let your guards down, they can sense it.

[Mark]

What was the most intimidating moment for you as a police officer working on a case? Was there any moment that scared you or that you felt like was too dangerous while you were on the job?

[Mike Moy]

There was this mob hit, an Italian mob hit. Yeah. The body was dumped in the confines of our prison, and I wound up catching the case. Yeah, the guy who did. The guy who we suspected who did the job, he served about 15 years in prison already for unrelated homicide. And this guy wanted to make a name for himself and kill this kid because this kid owed the mob $100,000, him and his partner. So basically, the mob fronted them the money to run a construction site. But, you know, he had a bad drug habit, so he lost all that money, couldn't pay back. They killed him. So it was a lot of. I did a lot of work on that job, that case, and, you know, we even had the guy who killed his victim. He went to his funeral. I went to the funeral to try to talk to him, just to get a feel, you know, how he's going to react. This guy is. He's a seasoned criminal, so he wouldn't talk. So we had the. I called in the special unit from the NYPD to record him, his movements, and record everyone who went in and out of the funeral home. And I had the helicopter follow him. Had the NYPD helicopter in the sky follow him, see where he went after the funeral. But he was keen to that also.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. So he was driving in circles. So. Yeah, Some people are seasoned criminals. They're not easy to catch. Eventually that case is still open. And eventually the feds took it over. They came to my office and they took it over, and it's in their hands. I'm pretty sure the feds have more resources to deal with that. The last I heard, he's in prison for life.

[Mark]

Wow, that's a wild case. He went to the funeral.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

That's pretty bold. I mean, that's wild. Now, we were talking a little bit before. It wouldn't be an episode of Camp if I didn't ask you this question. Were there any police officers on the force that had experienced UFOs?

[Mike Moy]

Oh, I love your show about UFOs. I'm really into that also.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Actually, yes. Because I remember as a detective, you know, I was like, every time I see something in the news, I would like. You spend a lot of time in the office. I spend more time in the office than at Home with overtime and everything. So you know, we talk about anything and everything. And the topic of UFO came about and I asked some of my colleagues, have you ever experienced a UFO before? Because I never experienced one. Right. But I was always fascinated by this topic. And one guy, he was, yeah, he said when I was a kid I was riding my BMX bike and it was a clear blue, hot summer day, clear blue sky. And up in the sky I saw like a orange dot, right? Like a dot, orange, those glowing orange dot. I'm looking at it like what is that? And it's just like hovering in the air. And then in a matter of seconds it just like shot off into the air so fast, like in the blink of an eye is gone. And I'm talking to a senior detective about to retire and he's a level headed, he doesn't joke around, he's not that type. He's a very serious guy. And he says to this day I don't understand what that was. Right. It's something that he saw that he couldn't understand what it was, right. So that's one story and another story. He's a black detective that I work with. The other guy was a Hispanic detective. For those of people who work with me listening to this, they probably know who I'm talking about. So this black detective was driving in his car one day and.

[Mark]

All of.

[Mike Moy]

A sudden it was in the middle of the night, like 2, 3am in the morning. Nobody was out in the street. And you know in Brooklyn you have these buildings that's pretty high up, you know, like six story buildings, some of them like 12 story buildings. And he's driving and all of a sudden became like really dark. Like then he looked up in the sky and he saw something that's like flying in the air, didn't make a sound, noiseless, has no sound whatsoever. And this thing was as big as like a football field. And he's looking up in the air, right? It's got some lights, little lights, not like really that's going to bright up the. Darkened the street as it passed by because it was so big that he couldn't see the whole entire thing. All he saw was an object just flying over. He couldn't explain that. And it was in Brooklyn.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

You know, and it wasn't in the news.

[Mark]

And was he the only one that saw it or did he say he was with anyone else at the time?

[Mike Moy]

He was himself, by himself. He just couldn't explain what it was. He said this thing was so big it didn't make. I asked. Maybe it's a blimp, maybe. No, but it's too big to be. It's like it covered the whole sky. Like, just flew by across.

[Mark]

Bizarre.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah.

[Mark]

And then it took off. It like.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah, it just flew off, like, didn't make a noise.

[Mark]

Strange.

[Mike Moy]

I mean, it didn't take off. He didn't say it took off, like into the sky. It just kept on going, kept on going until he lost sight of it.

[Mark]

Bizarre.

[Mike Moy]

Yeah. At that rate of speed.

[Mark]

Right.

[Mike Moy]

Slow.

[Mark]

This guy, Nick Pope, that I had on the podcast, he was an English guy that worked within the Ministry of Defense and did some of the. I forget exactly what they call it, the anomalous phenomena, UFO type things. And he described one exactly like that, that he was working on a case where a bunch of people had seen this thing that was like the size of a football field. Like, he used that same term. He said soccer field. But it was going. And it was like just massive and dark and it just kind of like went over them. And then just sort of like. And multiple independent people had reported it. And then he was in charge of taking in all the reports for the government to log them. And he was like, we never. There was no military drill that happened that was disclosed to us, and he never knew what it was.

[Mike Moy]

I think all this stuff is made by humans. I can't see any of this made by another intelligent civilization beyond this planet.

[Mark]

Right. It's hard to fathom.

[Mike Moy]

No, because think about it. If you're so far more advanced than us, we're not going to be able to see them. What this planet is about, what, 4.5 billion years old? The universe, about 15 billion. So you got another 10 billion years ahead of us in technology, if that. Right. You're not going to be able to see them. Think about. We have nanotechnology now. What do they have? You think they're going to send a drone here the size of a school bus or a soccer field? They'll send us a drone here maybe even smaller than a flea. You're not going to see them. Why would. All this stuff is made here?

[Mark]

Yeah. So I guess some foreign government testing, military. Our own government doing military testing or something.

[Mike Moy]

And why would they need, let's say, the aliens. Why would they send them here when they could send a drone here? Right, Right. And the drone could be the size of a flea.

[Mark]

Of a germ. Who knows?

[Mike Moy]

A germ.

[Mark]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. I don't know exactly. I sometimes have a Hard time fathoming that it's a foreign civilization. I tend to think that.

[Mike Moy]

I think the government's just planting the seeds in people's head. Distract them from other things in this world.

[Mark]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike Moy]

What? I think that happens all the time because they have technology and they have satellites that's able to see the time on your watch. And this technology was back in the 70s.

[Mark]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Moy]

Right.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

You ever heard of that?

[Mark]

I never knew it was that.

[Mike Moy]

The August cameras.

[Mark]

No.

[Mike Moy]

I never knew it was that precise satellite in space.

[Mark]

They could see your watch.

[Mike Moy]

They could see the time on your watch. Yeah.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

Where all this technology come from? There's a lot of technology that the government's not gonna.

[Mark]

Yeah. And it never goes out.

[Mike Moy]

Release to the public. Right. It never goes out. Wow.

[Mark]

That's crazy. There were guys in the force that had experienced something like that. Did they ever report it? Did it ever go anywhere? Or did they just have the experience and they're like, that's weird.

[Mike Moy]

Did they what?

[Mark]

Did they ever report the experience? Like, did they ever.

[Mike Moy]

No, they didn't know. Nobody.

[Mark]

There's no place really to report it.

[Mike Moy]

No. Where are you going? To report it.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

Some weird thing you saw report the mufon. Yeah.

[Mark]

It's just such a bizarre thing. I think about these stories all the time. Like, I wonder what that is. I wonder what they saw.

[Mike Moy]

It's interesting, though. It's entertaining.

[Mark]

Yeah. That's how I feel about it. I like to think about it and I'm like. Because, again, I don't think these people are crazy. I don't think they're lying.

[Mike Moy]

They're gonna see what they believe. Yeah, right. They're gonna see. It's just like religion. Right. You're gonna see what you believe. A person in China on their deathbed is not gonna see Jesus Christ. Right. But there are people who may see Jesus Christ if they believe in Jesus. Right. But we don't believe. And so they see what they believe.

[Mark]

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. Now, when you ultimately retire from the nypd, and we don't have to go into too much detail on this, because I know this is not. There's still some pending, you know, circumstances given the lawsuit. But you've sanctioned the litigation against the nypd. What can you say about that?

[Mike Moy]

Well, I can only say what's already public information. Okay. And the case has been pending for since 2019, right? Yeah. What, six years already? And still waiting for justice. But look at the guys that did this to me. Right? You have James Cobell, he was the commanding officer of eeo. I know. One of my case went away in eeo.

[Mark]

What is that?

[Mike Moy]

Equal Employment Opportunity. The NYPD investigates that. And he was the top dog there, okay? And he was. Read about him in the newspaper. Look what he did. Okay? Read about him in the newspaper. James Cobell, nypd. Okay. Then the lieutenant who investigated my case, John Dandola, nypd, read about him, what he did. This was all after my case.

[Mark]

And what can you say about your case?

[Mike Moy]

I'm not going to talk about my case, but just. These are the guys that handled my case and did this to me. Okay?

[Mark]

And so now you still have a lawsuit with them waiting to get resolved.

[Mike Moy]

Yes. And then you have Anthony Carrera, the detective in my office. He recently got arrested for the PPP fraud. Then you got Rohel Khalid. Okay? Read about him. Nypd, He's a suspect in a homicide case. Okay? Then you got Yusuf Issa in my office. He got caught for stealing time. And read about him in the New York post. He scammed $15,000 from E ZPass. Right? Read about that case. Then you got my commanding officer, Gary Carperell. Read about him in the newspaper. Then you got William Gray. Right? I wouldn't talk about William Gray if he didn't turn against me and went with them to drop his testimony. Right. He was my partner. Right. Read about him in newspaper.

[Mark]

So when do you.

[Mike Moy]

Excuse me.

[Mark]

I was gonna. I'm curious. Like, when do you think the case will be resolved?

[Mike Moy]

I don't know.

[Mark]

What is the next.

[Mike Moy]

Wheels of justice is slow sometimes.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Mike Moy]

You know, let's see, then you have Elvis Mavisalti. Read about him in the papers. It's not a coincidence. These people got away with what they did to me. Right. And that's what emboldened them maybe, to do these things. Right? Because when you get away with something, right, you get bolder.

[Mark]

Has the lawsuit and what was done to you affected the way that you think about your police career? Does it tarnish it?

[Mike Moy]

No. No. There's a lot of good people in nypd. It just happened that I came across some bad ones. You know, I went from bad to blue. They went from blue to bad, Right.

[Mark]

I think you took the right track. Bad to Blue sounds better to me. And that's the name of your book that comes out July 1st?

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

And where can people get it?

[Mike Moy]

They can get it on Amazon. And Amazon.

[Mark]

That's awesome. And, yeah, it's coming out soon. You go through your whole career, a lot of the Stories that we talked about, but even more stories that we didn't talk about today that are all detailed in the book. Are there any stories that you can tease, just maybe like a brief idea that people might be interested in if they want to check out the book? Is there anything we didn't talk about today that you want to tee up for people to go check out?

[Mike Moy]

There was a kid. I mean, when I was bullied, I became a bully myself. So there was a kid I bullied. I believe it was in the fifth grade. I was extorting him for his lunch money. And we're Talking about almost 40 years later, I come across him in the same precinct that I work at, and I didn't know it was him. We worked together for years, and I didn't know that that was the kid that I was extorting money from until he walked out one day and I saw his name tag and I saw the last name. Then I went up to him and I asked him, are you so and so. He goes, yeah, who are you? I go, I'm Mike Moy. He goes, get out of here. I was just thinking about you last week, and you pop up in front of my face now. I'm like, did I traumatize you that much for you to be thinking about me after all these years? He goes, yeah, but read about it in my book.

[Mark]

Wow.

[Mike Moy]

We worked in the same precinct. Wow.

[Mark]

Okay. That sounds like a fascinating story. I'm going to check that out. Bad to Blue.

[Mike Moy]

Yes.

[Mark]

Out July 1st. Also, Chinatown gang stories on YouTube. Amazing interviews going through the history of Chinatown, specifically the untold crime component. Oftentimes you're getting conversations with people that don't talk to anyone else because of your relationships. And it's kind of the hub and the exclusive place to get the actual stories of what New York City Chinatown was like in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

[Mike Moy]

Correct.

[Mark]

Awesome. Mike Moy, thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate you joining me today.

[Mike Moy]

Thank you, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here. It's my first time camping.

[Mark]

Well, you're welcome back anytime. Let's do it again soon.

[Mike Moy]

I love this tent.

[Mark]

Thank you, brother. If you've made it to the end of this episode, that's because you rock with us. And for that, we rock with you. You are sophisticated. You enjoy honest, true communication. A highbrow type of person that understands this history is not just dates and names. It is a tapestry of human triumph and tragedy from the day Nostradamus made his first prophecy to the morning Paul Revere took his midnight ride from ancient oracles to modern revolution revolutionaries. That is why I need you. If you have not already, please sign up for Today in History. Our free newsletter. Today in History brings you the stories that matter, the moments that changed everything, and the secrets hidden in time. Join thousands of history enthusiasts who get their daily journey through time. Don't let another day of history pass you by. Take the conversation to your inbox. Sign up now through the QR code or link in the Description Description Today in History because history's stories shape tomorrow's world. Thank you for watching the episode.

[Mike Moy]

We'll see you next time.