Judge sentences Bay Area man to a year for laundering $1.5 million for San Francisco mafia

Serge Gee, 37, of Cupertino, was sentenced to 12 months and a day for laundering $1.5 million for the Ghee Kung Tong organization, led by Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow.

SAN FRANCISCO — A Cupertino man has been sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal custody for laundering more than $1.5 million for an undercover officer pretending to be a New York mob figure who was seeking help from an organization led by an infamous Bay Area gangster.

Serge Gee, 37, was sentenced Aug. 15 by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. Last April, Gee pleaded guilty to laundering money with the Ghee Kung Tong criminal organization, the San Francisco-based mafia group led by Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.

Prosecutors argued for a 34-month sentence, writing in a sentencing memo that Gee was brought into a money laundering conspiracy by his mother, Elaine Liang, who ran a “drug distribution network” that stretched to New York, Georgia, and Massachusetts. They acknowledged, though, that Gee “willingly returned from abroad” to face these criminal charges.

The undercover FBI agent gave Gee and others the impression that the money he was laundering came from “illegal gambling, bookmaking, sports betting, drugs, and marijuana grows,” prosecutors said.

Gee’s attorney cited his rough upbringing and relatively minimal involvement in criminal activity, compared to his co-defendants. Others in the case were implicated in crimes like murder, drug sales, and bribing public officials, including a prominent state senator and multiple police officers.

Breyer’s order allows Gee to remain out of jail until Nov. 13, when he’s required to report to the Bureau of Prisons to begin his sentence.