Police: Datuk M a top boss in notorious Gang 24

OCPD Asst Comm Mior Faridalathrash Wahid

GEORGE TOWN: The Datuk businessman who was shot dead by his bodyguard following an argument, was a top boss in Gang 24, said the police.

OCPD Asst Comm Mior Faridalathrash Wahid said police were aware of Datuk Ong Teik Kwong’s and the gang’s illegal activities for some time.

“We have information that the members were involved in protection rackets but no one has come forward to lodge a police report. The gang is also involved in illegal money lending.

“It is one of 14 secret societies being monitored by us. We have a list of the members and know their movements,” he said when contacted yesterday.

It was reported that Ong was among several people linked to a murder case in 2011 – a VCD seller killed by several parang-wielding men.

On Thursday night, Ong and two others were killed while five people were injured when the bodyguard opened fire at them along the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway.

When Ong, also known as “Datuk M” for Datuk muda (young Datuk), received his Datukship, his friends and numerous companies took out 50 full-page “congratulatory” advertisements, worth more than RM150,000, with a Chinese newspaper. The ads were spread over several months.

Sources said Gang 24 became “a super gang” after it merged with the notorious Sio Sam Ong (Three Little Emperors) triad which was behind the slaying of six people in Taman Bersatu, Sungai Petani, during a pre-wedding dinner in September 1992.

“After the merger, it was known as Gang 234, but to outsiders it was still Gang 24 and Sio Sam Ong,” said a source.

“Police have not ruled out the possibility that Gang 234 was branching out into drug trafficking.”

On July 21 last year, police seized RM1.5mil worth of drugs and more than RM1mil in cash with the arrest of five people, including three Sio Sam Ong members, in separate raids in Penang.

Sio Sam Ong has been implicated in at least 10 murders in the state, dating back to the late 80s and early 90s.

Five skeletal remains believed to be those of gang members, found with hands tied behind their backs, were exhumed from unmarked graves in Mount Erskine in 1992.

They were apparently killed for betraying the gang.