PETALING JAYA, Aug 1 — It seemed like a normal Wednesday afternoon when 41-year-old V. Kandasamy drove up to the traffic light junction leading into Jalan Genting Klang in Setapak.
Traffic was at a comfortable pace where the speed of a shooting taking place a metre from your car could be etched into your memory for a long and traumatising period.
At about 3.30pm, four men on two motorcycles, carrying two very likely fully-loaded firearms, rode up to Kandasamy’s silver Honda Accord.
Jumping off their bikes and peppering the car from both sides with 18 bullets, the seemingly rehearsed move was done and dusted in less than 10 seconds.
Police later confirmed Kandasamy’s affiliation to the notorious Satu Hati (SH) gang.
But who are Satu Hati?
According to a police source, the organisation was formed in the early 1980s by a man who was only known as YB Solo. Its foundations were built on a creed which denounced involvement in drug deals and prostitution.
The gang justified to themselves that staying away from these activities would in some way maintain some sort of integrity.
“Not long after they were formed, some members started going against the creed and became involved in activities considered forbidden to the organisation,” the source said.
This caused rivalry among gang members, and the organisation failed to reach a unanimous decision and resulted in a split.
“Some of them remained in SH, while others who left formed the Three-Six (TS) gang,” the source said. Members who defected into TS started encroaching into the territories formerly controlled by SH.
“When the turf clashes started, one by one members from either side of the groups were killed over the years leading into the 1990s,” he said.
According to the source, these turf wars intensified over the last 10 years, with brutal consequences.
When a gang considers a certain area as part of its turf, the members would demand money from all businesses in the area in exchange for, what they prefer to call, protection.
Ranging from small to big business franchises, the thugs would demand a protection fee, threatening violence if the owners do anything less than cooperate.
“A normal Chinese restaurant would probably be charged nothing more than RM500 a month. But, they are out for the bigger fish such as pubs and construction sites that can afford more,” he said.
The gang members are able to rake in thousands of ringgit by protecting these business establishments, especially construction sites.
“The upper echelons of the gang in a particular area would approach the project manager of the construction sites and demand a protection fee,” the source said.
In this case, failing to comply could mean damaged machinery and a site constantly harassed by these gangsters.
“They would exaggerate the threats to these project managers and would in turn offer them protection and also manpower in exchange for cash,” he said.
The gangs would provide the numbers in construction workers, where they perceived such an agreement as being handed a sub-contract for the development.
These construction workers would be drafted from the thousands of members who have pledged their allegiance to the gang.
People interested to join these gangs were subjected to a process of initiation, while some considered it more of an orientation process.
Initiation rituals among gangs varied, according to the source, with some involving self-mutilation.
“The SH gang does not have many initiation ceremonies, but pledging loyalty to the gang sometimes meant getting tattoos of specific logos at specific areas on the body. Anything less would not be recognised as a symbol of allegiance,” the source said.
Once in the gang, the members most of the time earned their money through the aforementioned means.
“Only several members who gained the trust of the higher ranking thugs would be given bigger responsibilities such as debt collecting. Only the brazen ones end up pulling triggers against a rival,” he said.
While not all members would be trusted to handle a firearm, according to the source, these gangs have resorted to acquiring gunmen trained in handling the weapon.
“Some former police and military personnel who were discharged for various disciplinary faults sometimes found themselves pulling the trigger for the same thugs whom they tried to take down while in the force,” the source said.
The use of former police and army personnel as assassins has become the preferred choice of many gangs, the source said.
Contact with the thugs would have been established when these officers were tasked to take down their organisations.
The moment of desperation hits when their steady pay cheque while working in the force is abruptly choked and the funds start becoming tight.
“Suddenly, you find yourself broke, but you are very well-trained in handling firearms. What else can they do to utilise that rare ability?” the source said.
In reference to last Wednesday’s shooting, the source said the shooters seemed like professional hitmen who managed to do the job while shooting in each other’s direction.
“It is very likely the gunmen were very experienced and had tailed the suspect for a period of time before the execution,” he said.
Tracing back the culprits of the shooting would send police on a whirlwind as they tried to establish leads into the case.
The source said this was because of smaller splinter cells that formed within the rival gangs.
“These smaller cells that share a similar code of conduct with the parent gang could end up locking horns with rivals over trivial matters that were not necessarily agreed upon by the gang leaders,” he said.
Smaller splinter cells carrying out attacks made tracking culprits down trickier as police need to identify these smaller groups within the main organisation, something the source compared to looking for a needle in a haystack.
