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Criminal

The Mug Book

Criminal

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.7 • 39.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a gang leader was murdered in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the only witnesses who would talk with the police were tourists. They looked through so-called “mug books” filled with photographs of Asian men - and pointed out a man named Chol Soo Lee. Years later, a journalist decided to investigate his case, and described it as an “unreal, Alice-in-Chinatown murder case." Today’s episode comes from the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast. Julie Ha's documentary is Free Chol Soo Lee. Join our newsletter by 2/28/26 to be entered to win a free year of Criminal Plus: ⁠⁠thisiscriminal.com/newsletter⁠⁠. (Additional rules apply.) Say hello on ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Follow the show and review us on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠. ⁠Sign up for Criminal Plus⁠ to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make ⁠This is Love⁠ and ⁠Phoebe Reads a Mystery⁠. Artwork by ⁠Julienne Alexander⁠. Check out ⁠our online shop⁠. Episode transcripts are posted on ⁠our website⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace.

0:03.3

If you're a business owner, you know that it matters how you present your business online.

0:07.7

Squarespace has the tools you need to customize your website and advertise all the kinds of services you provide.

0:14.4

Plus, you can choose the colors and fonts you like.

0:18.0

Go to Squarespace.com slash criminal for a free trial. When you're ready to launch,

0:22.3

use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

0:27.8

I got in the water in the very early morning before the sun had risen, and the water was pitch black.

0:35.0

I started swimming, and I felt the water hollowing out around me and felt like something

0:41.3

really big was swimming below. I'm Phoebe Judge and this is love. A show about the

0:48.7

surprising things that love can make us do. More than 100 episodes, available now on This Is Love.

0:59.5

On June 3, 1973, a gang leader named Yip You Tak was gunned down at a very busy intersection in Chinatown.

1:09.6

Julie Haugh is a journalist and a filmmaker.

1:11.6

This murder was actually witnessed by probably dozens and dozens of people.

1:16.6

When police arrived, they found a 38-caliber revolver, but they couldn't find any witnesses.

1:25.6

Julie Haugh says the locals in San Francisco's Chinatown

1:30.3

were too afraid of gang retaliation to speak with the police.

1:35.3

There were more than a dozen unsolved murders in Chinatown attributed to gang warfare.

1:41.3

It started to become actually quite a serious problem for the city of San Francisco

1:45.8

because tourism in Chinatown was really like a main lifeblood of San Francisco's revenue.

1:54.5

The police interviewed the only people willing to talk.

1:58.9

The police were only able to get these white tourists who saw the killer for

2:03.6

mere seconds from quite a distance away to come down to the station and look through mugbooks.

...

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