My name is Frederick Wong, I entered on duty in 1982 in September through the San Francisco
division and I retired in July of 2007 as a legal attaché out of Jakarta.
I always wanted to be an FBI agent or in law enforcement. I used to every Sunday with my
parents, 8 o’clock on Sundays watch The FBI with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. I still remember
those days of watching TV.
Back in those days, you went back to your office of hiring for six months, so I went
back to San Francisco, gained some on-the-ground experience working reactive, then white collar
crime matters.
I was then transferred to Seattle, Washington in 1984, where I was assigned to the reactive
squad and one of the first cases I was assigned to by my supervisor was Tony Ng, or Wai Chiu
Ng, murder case in which he murdered 13 gamblers in Seattle, Washington and was a fugitive.
I still recall my supervisor at the time calling me into the office and saying it takes—because
Tony was Chinese and I am of Chinese ancestry—it takes a Chinese to capture a Chinese.
So, I was assigned the case and that was primarily my case for 18 months where I just followed
leads and spoke to a lot of people in Chinatown.
Tony Ng by that time had become one of the FBI’s Top Ten Fugitives. I finally, through
leads and speaking to a lot of people, narrowed down his location to Calgary, Canada. Myself
and the Seattle Police Department went to Canada, went to Calgary and captured him,
arrested him, brought him back to Seattle, Washington where he stood trial.
I wanted to be—we’re all hired as my other colleagues that I’ve mentioned, we are all
hired as special agents. Not as an Asian special agent or a female special agent, but we’re
special agents there to do the job.
It’s the greatest job in the world as my colleagues have mentioned. You meet the greatest
people. When people ask me to describe it, it might be a little bit different. I describe
it as fun.
I had the most fun in my life. It was hard work, it was difficult work, long hours, but
at the end of the day because of the agents that we work with and support it was the best
job.
The best cadre of people. With the backgrounds that everyone had, I think everyone contributed
to the mission.