5T (gang)

5T was a Vietnamese crime gang active in the Cabramatta area of Sydney, Australia in the final two decades of the 20th century.

The rise of 5T
The 5T gang was started by refugees who came to Australia with their parents after the fall of the Republic of Vietnam. The formation of the 5Ts began in the mid-1980s. The term 5T, stands for five Vietnamese words starting with T; 'Tình', 'Tiền', 'Tù', 'Tội' and 'Tử', translating to 'Love, Money, Prison, Punishment, Death'. However, 5T also means 'tuổi trẻ thiếu tình thương' which roughly translates to 'childhood without love.' Gang members apparently were tattooed with the emblem consisting of a straight horizontal line and 5 joined vertical lines with members' first and family names starting with the letter T being the horizontal line on top of the name. Tri Minh Tran rose to leadership of the 5T gang by the age of 14 in 1989. Born in Vietnam in 1975, Tran arrived in Australia at the age of 7 as a refugee. By the age of 11, he had spent six months in a children's institution for carrying a sawn-off shotgun and in the next couple of years was suspected of the murder of two rival gang members. The 5T gang dominated over the Cabramatta heroin trade, predominately at a street level. Politician John Newman said: "The Asian gangs involved don't fear our laws. But there's one thing they do fear -- that's possible deportation back to the jungles of Vietnam, because that's where, frankly, they belong.

Disbandment
The murder of Tran in 1995 sparked a power struggle within the organization. This was ultimately furthered with the death of the 5T successor. The successors of the 5T includes (Madonna) [Ro Van Le]. The leader and namesake of the gang, however, was subsequently murdered outside a Western Sydney pub in 1999 shortly after being released from prison, subsequently leading to the eventual demise of the 5T Gang.