[1] Viễn was head of the Bình Xuyên and was hunted by the French in the 1930s and 1940s until he and a number of his cohorts were eventually captured and sentenced to confinement in the penal colony on Côn Sơn Island.

[citation needed] In August 1945, the Việt Minh chief of Cochinchina, Trần Văn Giàu, formed an alliance with Bảy Viễn and Ba Dương against the French.

[citation needed] Following the British-supported French counter-coup in September 1945, the Việt Minh withdrew from Saigon, leaving Bảy Viễn as military commander of Cholon with a force of 100 men.

[citation needed] Sensing a shift in the political tide, Bảy Viễn seized the opportunity to consolidate his hold on the Bình Xuyên and achieve dominance.

In the wake of Ba Dương's death, Viễn began secret negotiations with the French Deuxième Bureau for exclusive rights to territory in Saigon, ultimately leading to a March 1948 agreement with Savani, which was formalized on 16 June 1948.

United States observers of the process laconically refer to the Binh Xuyên in this era as a: "... political and racketeering organization which had agreed to carry out police functions [for the Government of Viet-Nam] in return for a monopoly on gambling, opium traffic and prostitution in the metropolitan areas."