The Los Angeles Times said on Wednesday that State Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was recently arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yee's arrest was reportedly part of a public corruption probe by the agency, who had made other raids along with gang task force officials on that day, an unnamed law enforcement official has told the paper. FBI agents reportedly searched the office of the state senator but refused to comment about the nature of their investigation at least on Yee. The arrest was subsequently confirmed by an FBI agent to The Associated Press.
Although people involved in the arrest and of Yee's camp had clammed up about the circumstances behind the US Senator's arrest, the LA Times said that the arrest might have been linked to the arrest of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow. Mercury News said Chow, who was arrested in the morning on that day, is an infamous Chinatown gangster who has racked up racketeering and drug-related charges, sources have told the local paper. Chow managed reduce his 1995 sentence of 24 years for fderal racketeering to 11 years as a result of his cooperation with authorities, and had long been out of prison for the past decade.
Yee's ascension to state Senator and Speaker pro Tempore easily made him the second-most powerful Democrat considering he started as a San Francisco supervisor in 1997 and a member of the San Francisco Unified School District board. It is most likely that the recent chain of events could mar his chances to become the secretary of the state of California, LA Times said.
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said that the raids done by the FBI and authorities, including those of Lee, told local station KCBS that the operations were massive, involving hundreds of officers in the process. Among those raided on Wednesday was the Chinese Freemasons' Ghee Kung Tong Supreme Lodge on Spofford Street in San Francisco's Chinatown said the San Francisco Chronicle. The LA Times also noted that an FBI evidence response team also conducted a search in a building in the 1700 block on Hyde Street.
