Santiago, April 4 (IANS) Chile’s El Barrio Meiggs region has emerged as an operational hub for the ‘Bang Clan’, a Chinese organised crime group with roots in the Fujian province on China’s southeastern coast. The organisation is involved in a range of criminal activities, including “intensive cannabis cultivation; human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation; as well as the trafficking of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and ecstasy”, a recent report has detailed.
Writing for ‘The Diplomat’, Antonio Castillo, a Latin American journalist, said that the Chilean authorities are confronting an escalating challenge with El Barrio Meiggs turning into a hub for Chinese organised crime in the South American country.
He said that the area has grown discreetly amid the karaoke bars, gaming parlours, and retail Chinese malls, where legal businesses cover “illegal and criminal activities”.
Castillo cited Chile’s former Minister of Public Security Luis Cordero, stating that the Chinese mafia relied on formal economic structures to carry out “their illicit activities”, which included “trafficking of people, trafficking of migrants, illegal gambling, theft, extortion, and murder”.
According to Castillo, the Chilean police uncovered large-scale Chinese organised crime in El Barrio Meiggs during operations in August and December 2025.
“There is a Chinese mafia of great magnitude in the neighbourhood. We have arrested dozens of people with a large number of weapons and a significant amount of money,” the report quoted Mario Desbordes, the Mayor of Santiago, as saying.
The Bang Clan, report mentioned, originates from the criminal networks historically associated with mafias in southern China, especially linked to Fujian-based structures that transformed from mutual aid societies into globalised criminal organisations.
Earlier in December 2025, the Chilean police dealt a major blow to the Bang Clan during ‘Operation Great Wall’, raiding the covert nightlife of El Barrio Meiggs.
“The operation led to the arrest of 30 individuals – 27 Chinese nationals, two Chileans, and one Bolivian. Among those arrested was also an active-duty police officer, who allegedly provided surveillance services and ‘tipped off’ the organisation regarding police operations,” it added.
The report noted that in January, the Chilean authorities initiated formal hearings against 49 members of another Chinese mafia group based in the northern city of Iquique, situated around 1,760 km north of the capital Santiago.
The criminal group, identified as the “Clan Cheng”, was led by a Chinese father and his two children.
Citing data from the Observatory of Organised Crime and Terrorism (OCRIT) at the University of Andres Bello in Santiago, the report said that the number of Chinese nationals detained in Chile has increased by 520 per cent over the past five years.
–IANS
scor/as
