The Vietnamese language and culture has been greatly influenced by Chinese values and traditions. In fact, many Vietnamese criminal refugees are ethnically Chinese and have been assimilated into existing Chinese criminal organizations. An example is the Flying Dragons in New York City, a Chinese street gang that has a Vietnamese contingent, also known as the Viet-Ching, headed by Mink Chee Phu. The group's primary criminal activities include extortion, armed robbery, prostitution, auto theft, arson and gambling.

The Vietnamese are the most vicious and ruthless of the Asian criminal groups. The gangs are highly mobile and travel across the nation to commit criminal acts. They often move from one Vietnamese community to another, using safe houses shared by members of other gangs. The majority of gang members are engaged in armed home invasion robberies, auto theft and extortion of Chinese-owned businesses. They are more violent than the Chinese gangs. Like those gangs, however, the Vietnamese cause property damage and threaten merchants who refuse to pay.

Both Philadelphia and New York City have several Vietnamese gangs. There is also documented Vietnamese gang activity in Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., cities with large Vietnamese populations.

The Vietnamese are the predominant of the Asian criminal groups who live in New Jersey. Hudson and Essex Counties have the largest Vietnamese populations in the state. Local police departments in both counties are actively engaged in gathering information on Vietnamese criminal activity. In one case, which occurred in July, 1986, the Englewood Cliffs Police Department recovered several thousand dollars worth of stolen car radios, and charged three Vietnamese from Jersey City with possession of stolen property and possession of burglary tools.

In South Philadelphia, there is a Vietnamese street gang operating in the vicinity of the Italian Market. This loosely knit group has some 25 members between the ages of 16 and 28 and is engaged in extortion and auto theft. In March, 1986, three Vietnamese minors from Philadelphia, and another from Arlington, Virginia, were apprehended in Mercer County, New Jersey, operating a vehicle stolen from Baltimore, Maryland. They were also charged with the illegal possession of two pistols. The Philadelphia group were all members of this street gang from South Philadelphia.

There is another Philadelphia group known as the West Philly Woo Boys in the area of the University of Pennsylvania that is involved in extortion, residential robberies and auto theft, and is comprised of 20 to 25 members.

Jersey City has New Jersey's largest Vietnamese community. Many young gang members picked up in New York City have been traced to Jersey City. Cuong Quoc Pham, a member of the New York City-based BTK – Born To Kill – street gang, was arrested on December 21, 1989, along with two other Vietnamese from Jersey City, for a home invasion robbery in Scotch Plains. Cuong was previously arrested in Washington, D.C., for possession of an incendiary device when he threatened to bomb an Asian brothel. BTK gang members have also been involved in three recent murders in New York City.

In July, 1990, seven persons were wounded at a cemetery in Linden (Union County) at the funeral of Born To Kill gang member Vinh Vuu when gunmen posing as mourners opened fire with automatic weapons during the burial. Vuu had been gunned down on Canal Street in New York City's Chinatown. Intelligence information indicates that Vuu's murder and the shooting at the cemetery stemmed from an ongoing feud between the BTK gang and other Asian street gangs for control of rackets among the Chinese community in New York.