Smooth Operators - Clubs BBOSS and Big Boss Generation in Hong Kong
The Asian Crime Century briefing 122
Club Big Boss Generation opened last week in Hong Kong and was promptly raided by the police, with at least one person arrested in relation to suspicion of money laundering. The new club is the successor to the original Club BBOSS that started business in 1984 as Club Volvo, thrived during the economic boom until the early 2000s with at least 1,000 employees providing hourly multilingual “conversation services” before closing in 2012. Club BBOSS was one of many luxurious Japanese style hostess nightclubs that opened in Hong Kong during the 1980s and 1990s as havens for wealthy businessmen to meet, as well as triads and other criminals to profit from.
Nightclubs as well as Chinese ball rooms with hostesses are common in Hong Kong. Nightclubs are clubs where customers could be accompanied by a hostess by paying a rate that would be higher for younger and more attractive women. Ballrooms were traditional dance halls where customers could dance with hostesses and also be accompanied to drink and talk. Most of the triad controlled nightclubs and ballrooms were careful to not allow the provision of sexual services on the premises, and customers would have to pay a fee to ‘buy-out’ the hostess either for a short time or for a night. Most nightclubs and ballrooms were fronts for triad controlled prostitution, and remain a feature of Kowloon in the Tsim Sha Tsui, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kong areas.
Triad societies would profit from nightclubs and ballrooms not only from operating them, which they could not do for all, but also from running prostitution services, providing protection (i.e. extortion) to the premises, and controlling valet car parking outside of the premises. Without effective suppression by the police, these triad activities inevitably evolve and increase, with triad gangs dominating their designated areas.
Triad influence over nightclubs and similar entertainment establishments has been well summarised by Yiu-kong Chu:
“Entertainment business operators, especially in busy tourist areas, tend to employ the most powerful triad society in the area to protect their premises against extortionists. For example, the police know that the vast majority of entertainment establishments in the Yau Tsim District [which includes Tsim Sha Tsui East where Club Bboss was located] are protected by the Sun Yee On triad society but they find it difficult to stop this as very few operators involved have come to make complaints.” (Yiu-kong Chu, The Triads as Business, Routledge, 2000).
From Club Volvo to BBOSS to Big Boss Generation
Club BBOSS originated as Club Volvo in Tsim Sha Tsui East in 1984, when Li Chuwen, the deputy director of the New China News Agency (NCNA) was asked to cut the ribbon for the opening ceremony, illustrating the desire amongst businessmen thirteen years before the handover of sovereignty in 1997 to cultivate links with officials in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
In September 2007, Club Volvo announced that it would be listed on the Hong Kong stock market and would offer 25 per cent of its stock to the public to raise HK$60 million (USD 7.6 million). In 1990 and again in 1994, the Swedish car maker Volvo announced that it would take legal action in the Supreme Court in Hong Kong against Club Volvo to stop use of its name, which it claimed was being used to deceive people into believing that there was a connection and consequently tarnished by the hostess services offered at the club. In the first case both parties reached a settlement, but after the 1994 action the name of the club was changed to Club Boss.
Competition between luxury nightclubs and karaoke lounges was intense, with the best performing staff being poached by rival establishments. ‘Mama sans’ who could procure and manage the best girls were in high demand, as well as the girls themselves who were high-end escorts. If a Mama San or girls moved to another nightclub they could take customers with them, leading to revenue loss for their former employers.
Despite the veneer of respectability, nightclubs such as BBOSS provided escort services that could involve sexual services if the hostess was willing to be paid to leave with the customer, and many of those women were, according to a former Mama San of the club, trafficked to work there. Club BBOSS was a relative escape from lower levels of prostitution, which according to the Mama San involved for one of her girls being trafficked from Manila by a triad gang who had deceived her about the type of work she would be doing in Hong Kong, and then forced to have sex with up to 30 men a night with the triads charging HK$50 (around UDD 7) per customer. The rates for taking girls out of Club BBOSS were far higher, so at least well paid prostitution but it remains the same business.
Club BBOSS closed in July 2012 after 28 years of business. By that time many wealthy Hong Kong businessmen preferred to go to Macau as well as Mainland China to visit the huge array of establishments providing hostesses and sexual services.
The Club BBOSS name resurfaced in May 2024 when the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued an alert regarding a suspicious investment plan relating to Big Boss Night Club, stating that “It appears that a company operating Big Boss Night Club 大富豪夜總匯 or New Big Boss Night Club 新‧大富豪夜總匯 intends to raise a total of HK$100 million by inviting the public in Hong Kong to subscribe for 50% of its share capital.”
The fraud, circulated on social media, seems to be an effort to capitalise on anticipation of the possible reopening of Club BBOSS. The advertisements circulated via social media claimed the club would reopen for business in October 2024 and go public via IPO by 2028 with a valuation of HK$200 million.
The fake scheme said someone who invests HK$15 million will get a directorship at the company and can also receive help getting a Hong Kong residency. It said the company expects to make HK$124 million of profit in 2025 and will pay 30 per cent of that as a dividend.
The club eventually reopened on Saturday 14 June 2025 under the name of ‘Club Big Boss Generation’ in the same site as its predecessor in the New Mandarin Plaza in Tsim Sha Tsui East, an area on the Kowloon peninsula. According to media reports, Big Boss Generation had raised over HK$100 million (US$12.7 million) from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong investors and planned to cooperate with cruise ship operators to bring customers to the club.
During the first night of business, officers from the police Organised Crime and Triad Bureau (OCTB) as well as staff from the government Food and Environmental Hygiene Department raided the premises. This seems to be a routine operation as the licenses and customer identification were checked, but after the one hour process the nightclub resumed business. One man was arrested by the police in connection with money laundering, but the language used by police suggests that he was identified as a wanted person during the customer identification checks.
Despite the history of Club Volvo and BBOSS as essentially being in the respectable prostitution business, the new Club Big Boss Generation claims to be an entertainment venue for all ages, with a children’s area, a café, a bar, and a private party club. The main club area has space for 500 people and there are another 49 rooms with audio-video equipment for private parties. The club also has a shop selling cigars and fine wines.
The Big Boss Generation CEO, Lee Kin-man, said that the club will consolidate Hong Kong's position as an Asian entertainment hub and attract small concerts and fan meetings. To reinforce the popular entertainment aspect of the club, Japanese star Sora Aoi was the guest of honour for the opening night. Ms. Aoi has a large Chinese male fan base as she is a veteran of over 600 Japanese adult films between 2002 and 2011 and has been described as “Japan’s porn star who taught a Chinese generation about sex.” Ms. Aoi may not quite be suitable for the children’s area of the club.
* * *
The new Club Big Boss Generation looks like a poor copy of the iconic BBOSS hostess nightclub that had its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite being a small part of the Hong Kong pre-1997 collective memory, Club BBOSS was essentially a respectable brothel that attracted triads who profited from various aspects of the business. Triads had a hand in controlling many girls involved in prostitution, in providing paid protection to the business operators, and controlling valet car parking, all of which often led to conflict with other triad gangs when they sought new business. Club BBOSS is not missed, and Club Big Boss Generation should not be welcomed.