Born to Kill (gang)
| Founded | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Founding location | New York City, United States |
| Years active | 1980s-present |
| Territory | United States, Canada |
| Ethnicity | Vietnamese |
| Membership (est.) | peak membership in New York ranged from 75-100, peak numbers outside of New York were unknown |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, counterfeiting, contract killing, extortion, racketeering, money laundering, robbery, fraud and murder |
| Allies | Flying Dragons |
| Rivals | Ghost Shadows |
Born to Kill, also known as BTK or Canal Boys, was the name of a notorious New York City-based street gang composed of first-generation Vietnamese immigrants. Their rise to power was in the 1980s when they ran New York City's Chinatown with an iron fist and quickly rose to become the most notorious Asian gang the United States had ever witnessed. The early 1990s proved to be detrimental to the Vietnamese collective following the arrest and prosecution of most of their New York-based operatives by the fall of 1992.
The gang that would be known throughout Manhattan Chinatown as Born to Kill was founded by Tho Hoang "David" Thai, who was born in Saigon on January 30, 1956. After the Fall of Saigon, with the help of his father, Dieu Thai, David Thai left Vietnam as a refugee in May 1975, where he then made his way to the U.S. Eventually, David Thai found himself in Lafayette, Indiana, where he lived in a small home for boys that was owned by the local Lutheran church, but in May 1976, with $150 in his pocket, Thai ran away from the church house and hopped on a greyhound bus destined for New York City. There, as a youth in New York City, Thai worked at various different jobs, ranging from being a busboy to being a dishwasher for a Manhattan restaurant, and in 1978, Thai met and married a fellow Vietnamese refugee. Struggling to provide for his new family however, Thai turned to crime, and in 1983, for a short period of time, David Thai was consigned as a member of the Vietnamese Flying Dragons, a small branch of the Flying Dragons gang, and as a gang member he occasionally committed robberies but was never caught. After a few years, Thai left the Flying Dragons and branched out on his own, establishing a budding multimillion-dollar counterfeit watch business.
During the mid to late-eighties, many Vietnamese youths began arriving in New York City, and many of them, being ostracized by the Chinatown community, were homeless and lived on the fringes of the community. Using his newfound wealth, David Thai began to assist these youth street youths by freely offering them advice, money and a place to stay, causing many of them to feel indebted to Thai and follow him, forming the beginnings of the gang.
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