The Dragonhead: The Godfather of Chinese Crime--His Rise and Fall

Distinguished journalist John Sack spent twelve years fearlessly shadowing and befriending the most powerful crime lord in the Chinese Mafia. Now he tells the true, unfictionalized story of mob legend Johnny Konthe Dragonhead.

The Chinese Mafia has always been a mystery to both law enforcement and the mediapart of an unapproachable and unfathomable conglomeration of secret societies operating worldwide. To this day, though, police and prosecutors insist that Johnny Kons own secret organizationthe Big Circleis public enemy number one. Now, in a triumph of literary journalism, John Sack introduces us to this secret world and its top criminal mastermind, reporting from the homes, hotel rooms, crime scenes, and jail cells of Johnny and his gang, all reported with their full cooperation. It is a journalistic coup.

From Kons escape from poverty in China and his golden years as a smuggler during the Vietnam War, The Dragonhead traces Johnnys rapid rise to power and chronicles the growth of his heroin cartel, as it smuggles a billion dollars worth of drugs into the United States. With astonishing savvy, Sack reveals the humanity behind the previously impenetrable wall of the Chinese and American underworlds, rife with shocking crimes, bound by unforgiving codes of honor. At once a loyal husband and father and a ruthless crime boss, Johnny Kon is by turns fascinating and repellent, but ultimately unforgettable.