Over the course of its long history, Saigon, Vietnam has had many eras of dominant organized crime groups that at one point or another controlled the illicit trade and activities within the city.
The long list of the organized crime history in Saigon covers the early Bình Xuyên pirates of the 1920s, to the Four Great Kings period of the 60s and lastly to Năm Cam's criminal reign during the 90s.
During the 1960s period to before 1975, Saigon's underworld at that time was characterized by the era known as the "Four Great Kings", which referred to the four most dominant mobsters in the city, and whose names was immortalized by the infamous phrase "1st) Đại Cathay, 2nd) Huỳnh Tỳ, 3rd) Ngô Văn Cái, 4th) Ba Thế",[a] with Đại Cathay assuming the role of "number one" or as the most dominant of the top four mobsters who collectively ruled Saigon.
One of the famous mobsters of Chợ Lớn was Tín Mã Nàm, nicknamed ngựa điên or the "Mad Horse".
[15] After spending years in a re-education camp, when Năm Cam was released, he quickly rose to the top of Saigon's underworld by amassing a substantial wealth around himself mostly through his illegal gambling activities.