Notorious gangster: The front page cover of ‘The Star’ on Jan 12, 1977, a day after Botak Chin was sentenced to death by the High Court.

LUCK. Botak Chin had luck, said retired top cop Tan Sri Mohd Zaman Khan.

“He had luck like I had never seen before,” he said of the man named Wong Swee Chin aka Botak Chin.

For better or for worse, Botak Chin was a household name in Malaysia.

When Zaman was the Criminal Investigation Department chief in Kuala Lumpur, Botak Chin was on top of his to-catch list.

And till today, the 80-year-old Zaman could recall how difficult it was to catch him.

“If you had gone to Sentul where Botak Chin started out, it was impossible to get information on him.

“Wherever he went, he would give people RM10 or RM20, which was a princely sum back then.

“The locals there liked him. And maybe they were also afraid of him,” he said.

While there was the urban legend that Botak Chin carried several Siamese talismans that granted him invincibility and invisibility, Zaman had a more practical assumption: Botak Chin, at his peak, was a gangster boss with a great many gunmen under him. And he had a deep network of informants.