NEW YORK CITY - The New York Daily News has lifted the veil on what is probably the most sordid aspect of the intercity bus industry in the United States: Chinatown's lucrative and violent discount bus wars.
An estimated 250 coaches, midsize buses and vans transport people in and out of New York's Chinatown daily, carrying gamblers to Atlantic City and commuters from Flushing, Queens, Sunset Park and Brooklyn. But, according to the Daily News, the most profitable runs are to other East Coast Chinatowns, stretching from Philadelphia to Boston.
Fares range from $12 to $35 which, in some cases, are roughly half those charged by Greyhound and other intercity carriers. Authorities told the Daily News that the New York to Philadelphia route alone can bring a Chinatown operator more than $1 million a year.
With such profits, the legitimate coach businesses may have drawn the tentacles of organized crime - the Chinatown gangsters who prey on fellow immigrants, the Daily News reported. The Manhattan district attorney's office is working to build a racketeering case, law enforcement sources told the newspaper.
"We believe there are links to Asian organized crime," one law enforcement official was quoted as saying. "We are aware of different incidents of vandalism and extortion involving some bus companies."
The Chinatown bus operations have been the subject of widespread coach industry speculation, wonderment and resentment. Both coach owners and industry observers have more questions about the Chinatown operators than they have answers, however.
There has been speculation the companies may be ripe for - or function as - money laundrying operations. Others wonder where they are dumping their lavatories, and still others observe that as far as they know none of the coaches operated by the Chinatown companies are ADA compliant or wheelchair-lift equipped.

Plenty of violence, too
In May, a man the Daily News described as "a player" in the Chinatown bus wars, was chased down and riddled with bullets, dying around the corner from where Chinese immigrant workers, college students and tourists board idling buses with exotic names like Dragon Coach, Lotus Tours and Fung Wah.
The night-time shooting of De Jian Chen, 27, was the culmination of years of violence surrounding the Chinatown bus business, sources told the Daily News. Investigators said he was an enforcer for a ruthless extortionist, while his business partner said he was a family man and a good friend.
The homicide is unsolved and the motive still mysterious - and that sends a chill through the bus companies. "We are scared, we might be the next targets," said Jack Ho, De Jian Chen's partner at Today Travel.
Several days after the slaying, one of his drivers was assaulted in Washington at the end of a trip, Ho said. As they beat him, the attackers said, "If we want you to run the buses you run the buses; if we don't want you to run the buses you don't," according to Ho. He said the driver filed a complaint with Washington police.
Daily News reporter Patrice O'Shaughnessy reported that observing the rivalry among bus companies on Forsyth Street at East Broadway, adjacent to the Manhattan Bridge, appears to be nothing more than spirited competition.
Ticket sellers with schedules in Chinese sit under umbrella stands at the bus stop. Hawkers vie for customers and insult competitors as coaches squeeze in and out of three spots at the populous intersection.
Other publications have reported that people who ride the buses say the drivers frequently are aggressive and breakdowns occur more often than on Greyhound and other established companies. However, the Chinatown buses also make fewer stops and, of course, are cheaper.

Fares, scene attract riders
The colorful scene, as well as cheap fares, appears to have increasingly attracted English-speaking passengers to buses that previously had been shuttling Chinese restaurant workers among the Chinatowns in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Richmond and Atlanta.
As the competition grew more aggressive, with everything from undercutting fares to stealing a Web site, some companies began employing strong-arm tactics, authorities told O'Shaughnessy. In offices above the sidewalks is a tangle of companies with changing names and owners.
"These companies merge, unmerge. ... They were whacking people over the head with pipes, slashing tires, breaking windows," said one investigator. "None of these [incidents] were making the police blotter because the people don't want to report it."
Then, in May of last year, the feuding escalated to a new height of viciousness. De Jian Chen, driving a vehicle for the Farewell bus company, was at the Forsyth Street stop and allegedly accelerated in reverse, smashing his vehicle into a New Century bus, pinning New Century owner Lun Dong Chen between the buses, according to a criminal complaint.
Witnesses said De Jian Chen backed up three times. Lun Dong Chen suffered a fractured pelvis, internal bleeding and other severe injuries, according to the complaint. De Jian Chen was charged with assault, menacing and reckless endangerment. The case was still pending when he was killed.

The Enforcer
Police sources said De Jian Chen acted as an enforcer, making sure parking spaces were available to his company's buses. But there was apparently another reason for the assault on Lun Dong Chen.
"It all started with a New York to Philly van company; it was frequented by gangster boys from the Fukien Flying Dragons - De Jian ran with them," said an investigator. "That is the first time law enforcement got involved."
Lun Dong Chen was a witness in a federal extortion case against an associate of De Jian Chen, a reputed member of the Flying Dragons named Xiang Chen. In 2000, Xiang Chen and other defendants stabbed and beat Lun Dong Chen and other employees of the Min Yun van service, which ran between Chinatowns in New York and Philadelphia. That forced Min Yun out of business.
Xiang Chen, 24, of Queens, was arrested in March 2002 for extortion and on separate federal charges of robberies in Chinatown in which he used a machine gun.
Despite his injuries, Lun Dong Chen testified in Manhattan Federal Court during the extortion trial last year, and Xiang Chen was convicted. In March, he was sentenced to 70 months in prison. Last month, Xiang Chen was convicted in the armed robberies. He faces up to 100 years in prison.
Meanwhile, De Jian Chen had been working for Dragon Coach, a company formed in August 2000 by Edward Ho. But three months ago, De Jian Chen and Ho's son, Jack, became partners and struck out on their own, forming another but similarly named company - Dragoncoach USA.
"Chen was the bus scheduler, the primary contact with the Web site [where tickets were sold], and he was able to capture that Web site for the new company," said Edward Ho's lawyer, Laurence Olive. As a result, Dragon Coach's business suffered drastically, Olive said.

Dragoncoach USA
Edward Ho filed suit to stop his son and De Jian Chen from using the name. Now the breakaway company is called Today Travel but some of the signs still read Dragoncoach USA. Olive said detectives investigating De Jian Chen's murder have interviewed Edward Ho.
At Today Travel, Jack Ho, 26, sat at a desk behind a metal security gate eying a video surveillance camera. "It's frightening," he said. Asked whether he thought his partner was killed in retaliation for the alleged assault, Ho said, "Maybe, we don't know."
But he said De Jian Chen was not associated with Xiang Chen or criminal elements. The slain man left a wife and one-year-old daughter, and investigators said his wife described him as a good provider and father who worked hard and did not drink.
"We won't let it go, we'll make sure the police follow up," Ho said. "We're walking carefully, driving carefully, watching our backs."
He said the company has hired a private investigator and is contributing with the Fukienese Association to add $18,000 to the $2,000 reward money offered by the city to find the killer.
Capt. James McCarthy, commander of Chinatown's 5th Precinct, said cops formed a task force a year ago to deal with 100 companies moving buses and vans through the congested area.
Working with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Department of Transportation and the Manhattan Traffic Task Force, they confiscated 20 buses for safety violations. They stopped vehicles from taking layovers on Forsyth Street, established pickup points and held meetings with the major companies.
Things had quieted down and then De Jian Chen was killed, the only murder in the precinct in 18 months. McCarthy said that not one complaint related to the buses has been generated since the slaying.
But some law enforcement sources doubt that De Jian Chen's death will end the violence. "Someone will take his place, because there is a lot of money to be made," said one investigator.