Silver medal World Famous Gangs - Triads reverse proof

The Czech Mint’s series titled World Gangs is a dark chronicle of organized crime. The fourth silver medal depicts the Chinese triads.

In the 17th century, China was ravaged by unrest. The Ming dynasty, which had ruled the country for centuries, was overthrown, and power was seized by the Qing dynasty from neighboring Manchuria. Many Chinese refused to accept this, so they began to organize into secret societies that sought to put an end to foreign rule. These societies went down in history as the Triads. Their name referred to the three fundamental elements of the Chinese worldview—heaven, earth, and humanity. This sacred trinity represented the ideal of harmony, which was meant to be the antithesis of the corrupt power of the usurpers. Members of the triads—who included peasants, merchants, officials, soldiers, and monks—swore an oath of loyalty to one another and gained a sense of uniqueness and moral mission. They organized their work, collected membership dues, redistributed income from estates, and established their own courts. In areas where central government was weak, the power of the triads grew rapidly, but as time went on, their political goals faded, and the originally patriotic societies began to transform into criminal organizations. Particularly in the 19th century, when China was weakened by the Opium Wars, the triads filled the power vacuum and took control of the underworld of major cities. They profited from drug trafficking, gambling, prostitution, and arms smuggling. At the beginning of the 20th century, they did indeed contribute to the fall of the hated regime, but soon afterward they themselves became an instrument of oppression that the new government used to intimidate political opponents. When the communist coup took place, it seemed that the golden age of the Chinese mafia had come to an end, but the opposite was true. Thanks to the massive Chinese diaspora, the triads expanded into Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Not only in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau, but in Chinatowns around the world, they created parallel power structures. Alongside order, protection, and work, these structures offer violence, punishment, and death. The former fighters against oppression have themselves become those who rule through fear…

Medal designer Adam Liška, DiS., dedicated the obverse side of the medal to a striking collage composed of shards. Reflected in them are an Asian dragon, chaos in the streets, a pistol, a meat cleaver - a favorite weapon of Asian criminals and a gangster sporting his characteristic tattoos. The reverse side of the medal, which is common to the entire series, features cold weapons and firearms, a skull, and a globe, symbolizing that organized crime is rampant throughout the world.

The collectible crime series has so far featured the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Los Angeles Crips & Bloods.