Part 4 – The Final Installment – The Verdict – Canton Drug Runners of 1939

Previously on Canton Drug Runners of 1939… Chung Lei is now in the custody of the SFPD and letters in his hand have revealed the plan to use a concession at the Golden Gate Expo in San Francisco as a front for opium dealing. His accomplice in smuggling the drugs has been revealed as neither an innocent party nor Chung’s wife, but in fact his mistress and mother of three of his children. The two remain in jail awaiting the judge’s final verdict….

On January 28th 1939 Judge Michael J. Roche presided over the trial of accused Canton drug “runners” Chung Lei and Leung Ying (or Yin) Lin (Leung Ting Lim in some papers who seemed to be having awful trouble getting her name right!), now referred to in the local papers as the “broke banker” and the “comely concubine”. He handed down five year sentences to both in federal prison for drug smuggling after which they were to be deported back to China. “Petite” Miss Leung broke down into tears as the judge pronounced.

Throughout the trial Miss Leung had had no counsel – she spoke through an interpreter and Chung Lei offered her no help with her defence. However, he had tried to protect himself in court. Chung was represented by James Whalen who could not muster much of a defence except that Chung was desperate after having his business in Canton destroyed by the Japanese invasion of China. While the Judge accepted that Chung was a victim of terrible circumstances due to the Japanese invasion of China it did not excuse his opium smuggling into the United States. Annoyed that Chung was trying to get a reduced sentence by claiming distress due to the war in China, Miss Leung told the court that their plan to import drugs into America under cover of the fireworks and candy concession at the Golden Gate International Expo was purely an attempt to pay off gambling debts and recoup Chung’s lost fortune. Chung’s attempted defence fell apart – he was in debt to criminal gangs and, in an attempt to extricate himself, had attempted to both smuggle opium into America and set up a sales operation at the Golden Gate Expo!

Chung it seems was indeed desperate – he now admitted that, on his earlier visit in July 1938, he had smuggled in a trunk of opium to Seattle when he had visited to secure the Golden Gate Expo concession. As mitigating circumstances he claimed that he had a wife and a further eight children back in Canton depending on him. The Judge was not impressed.

And so they were sent down….5 years each and then deportation…the Golden Gate Expo drug ring was shut down before it had managed to even start.

Chung Lei – the “broke banker of Canton”