Former Triad member saw his best friend being murdered in gang ambush
"We were ambushed by about 40 people all with machetes and knives. And yeah, we couldn't escape."
David King Raj, from Singapore, was just 19 years old when he found himself in this situation with his best friend. The pair were both members of Triad; a criminal organisation that originated in China, but has a presence across the globe.
First, though, let's rewind.
Raj grew up in a family where he 'wasn't given a lot of attention'. He was never asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, and so he never had the guidance he needed to get there.
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Instead, he fell in with the wrong crowd; one that led him to Triad.
He began getting involved in the gang when he was just 15 or 16 years old, when he was still in school.
Speaking to UNILAD, Raj explained that his school was 'notorious' for gang activity, with students having fights 'every day'.
"Of course, I didn't go out to be a gangster. I just wanted to join to have friends, have a group of people around me, have someone to talk to me. These are the reasons we joined."
Raj's reasons echo those of Cornelius Bowser, who fell into the LA Crips after growing up with members and hanging out with them as friends.
At the time, however, Raj pointed out the young members didn't know 'the repercussions' of their actions, including the 'fights and the murders'.
"We never expect that to happen. So eventually, one thing led to another and I got involved in a lot of chaos, mess, fights that were not mine," he recalled.
Raj described joining Triad as a numbers game, saying members were 'recruited' as the gang sought to be the biggest in the area. It had sub-divisions and branches, with so many young people that the higher ups, including leaders known as the 'headmen', didn't know 'half of them'.
"[They don't] know their names, and they don't care about us. They just need the numbers," Raj explained.
The gang didn't 'search for trouble', but like many others, Triad were defensive of their territory and were willing to fight those who posed a threat - even if that threat was something as simple as a wrong look.
"In Singapore... It can be a staring incident and people get into fights," Raj said. "Some of these fights happen because... a girl likes this guy, and now she likes this guy from another gang. [It turns] into a big gang issue. In fact, that's that's how my best friend was murdered."
"We just fight because the headmen ordered us or the gangs ordered us. But the truth is, it was all started because someone's girlfriend was taken by another guy or something like that."
Raj, who is now a coach and author, was in Triad for nine years, during which time he lived under a leader who would 'fight internally' among gang members and leaders and 'get angry' if his members didn't follow him.
As a result, Raj found himself accumulating 'more and more enemies along the way'.
"Of course, I regret every part of it," Raj told UNILAD. "I mean, there's short term happiness, but deep down everyday there is fear. There's fear because you don't know who's going to attack you."
Triad would wait at houses and even schools with 'knives, machetes and axes and all these things', though there were many things Raj was reluctant to do, even down to picking up a knife as a weapon.
Members didn't force him into picking it up, but the social pressure that came with being presented with a weapon was often too much to ignore.
"If you don't take up a weapon, they will laugh at you, they will look down on you. So a lot of things are done because of this pressure around you. Even though they might not force you to do something. We can see a lot of people who make irrational decisions and they realise actually, it's not part of who they are. They just want to please their friends.
"Whether it's taking drugs or doing some crime or getting involved into fights, a lot of it is reluctance."
Raj pointed out that a lack of social media in the 1990s meant the members could getting away with being 'more aggressive'.
"Now if you do something like that, people easily whip out a phone and you get trouble very fast. But in the past, there wasn't [the technology]. So we were a bit more aggressive in bringing out weapons. Everyday, there was lot of fear. A bit of happiness, a bit of fun, but mostly fear, mostly anxiety, not just from external gang members, even within yourself, within your gangs."
In 2000, Raj's gang, including his best friend, were ambushed by 'about 40 people' all laden with weapons. Though he managed to escape, his friend couldn't and the rivals 'killed him on the street'.
Raj now has a tattoo in memory of him, and at the time he was determined 'to try to hunt' those responsible. Along with a few gang friends, they tracked down one of the headmen and slashed his eye, while another 'got slashes like 24 times, 202 stitches and his head split open'.
He got himself into more and more trouble, to the point where he was on the run and considering travelling to Malaysia to escape.
Doing that, though, would mean leaving his family behind. Instead, he decided to surrender to the police and was put in prison for eight years.
Much like his school growing up, the prison Raj was held in was rife with gang activity - so much so that he described it as a 'gangster's paradise'. Every stone bench had different gangs 'allocated' to it, and officers would 'even allow gang settlement talks inside the prison office'.
Like Bowser, who found God after losing a member of his gang, Raj one day decided that he wanted to change.
"I found education as one of the way out of misery. I didn't study much when I was outside, but inside, I had nothing better to do... life has been always about a lot of instant gratification, or enjoying now, suffering later. So I decided that I did not want that," he explained.
Raj began to study and spent more time reading the Bible. While the other gangsters 'laughed' at first, eventually they realised his commitment was not a 'short term thing'.
"Even other gangs start to see, 'this guy is changing. No, let's not touch him, let's not disturb him'," he explained.
He received some backlash from his gang leader who didn't want him to leave, and acknowledged that 'sometimes when you quit a gang you must be beaten up.'
"Yeah, so I've gone through that before," he said.
Raj's efforts paid off, though, and while he was in prison he earned himself an interview with one of the best universities in Singapore.
Once he was released, he studied psychology and human resources, got an MBA in the UK and became more engrossed in life coaching to help young people, many of who are considered 'at risk', to find what he was never given as a child: 'a purpose in life'.
He completely left Triad behind, and hasn't been in touch with any of the members since his release. His family moved house, and he set out on his own path.
Having just turned 41, Raj knows he is 'not perfect'. But he knows that by getting out of the gang and turning his life around, he has the chance to inspire others and prevent them from ever going down the wrong path in the first place.
Topics: World News, Crime
Emily Brown