Who Killed Haing Ngor?

For months, Patricia Nunan and Frank, the researcher for the Innocence Center, have been building a case against “Larry,” a business partner of Haing Ngor.  This is the individual Los Angeles Police Department records say threatened him.  “I know professional killers,” Larry reportedly said.  It sent Ngor into hiding. It’s time to confront Larry.  In April 2026, Nunan went to Singapore to do exactly that.

Three-quarters (or so) of the way through Season 3, the Haing Ngor investigation has gotten complicated. In this episode, Patricia Nunan reviews the path so far:  Cambodia, Taiwan, the film industry, debt, threats, banks, money-laundering, the “Singapore Group,” and the political climate. Nearly all of these are leads the LAPD overlooked… or blew off. It’s a recap. The investigation is still unfolding, with patterns emerging around money, organized crime, and the circles Ngor moved through in 1990s Cambodia.

Patricia Nunan returns to Phnom Penh to follow the Cambodia side of the Haing Ngor story — the places he lived, the people who remember him, and the circles he moved through in the years before his death. The reporting examines fragments: a former home, a school built on land Ngor once owned, and traces of the business and social world he moved through in the 1990s. Nunan set out to find people  – and she did.  More significantly, though, may be the pattern that emerges from tracing some of Ngor’s steps in the last year of his life.

Our main suspect in the Haing Ngor murder – “Larry” – represented a “Singapore group.” That’s according to an interview that Ngor’s secretary gave to the LAPD. So who were they? In this episode, Patricia Nunan and Frank follow that lead through Singapore's corporate records, interviews with former FBI financial-crimes investigators, and a maze of companies that raise more questions than answers. Singapore’s reputation is all about law and order. But when it comes to money-laundering – sometimes – authorities look the other way.

In 1995, Haing Ngor tried to sell a license to open a bank in Cambodia. When the deal collapsed, police records say the buyer, “Larry,” threatened to kill him. That single detail sends Who Killed Haing Ngor? into one of another corner of post-war Cambodia: a banking system flooded with corruption and increasingly, organized crime. In this episode, Patricia Nunan traces how Cambodia went from abolishing money under the Khmer Rouge to becoming a Wild West financial playground in the 1990s. Was Ngor’s bank license just a failed business deal? Or was it tied to something much larger — an early sign of a criminal economy that still shapes Cambodia today? The episode also follows the larger question at the center of Season 3: If Ngor’s murder is linked to international business disputes, then who in Cambodia would have the ability  - and the willingness – to kill him in Los Angeles?

Another dimension to Haing Ngor’s life that went ignored by authorities in Los Angeles?  His decision to go into politics.  In the weeks before his death, Ngor told friend that he had been asked to run for high office. But he got out of it, because “it would get him killed.”  And  in Cambodia – the weeks surrounding Ngor’s death were especially volatile. Ngor may have been trying to right a wrong of his own making. He returned to Cambodia after "The Killing Fields,” and aligned himself with the autocratic prime minister, Hun Sen. It was a decision friends said he had come to regret.  

A Taiwanese triad  - the Bamboo Union - carried out the assassination of Henry Liu in California. Was that a precedent that could explain the murder of Haing Ngor?  That’s the question what Patricia Nunan went to Taipei to explore. But Ngor wasn’t just doing business in Cambodia. He was an actor – active in in the Hong Kong and Taiwanese film industries. The movie business was deeply entangled with triads. That’s how Nunan can connect some dots between Liu’s assassins and Ngor.  The result is a clearer picture of Ngor’s proximity to organized crime, as his financial life was in turmoil.

In 1996, a Taiwanese hitman moves to Cambodia. His triad, the Bamboo Union, was already on the ground — loan-sharking, moving money, and running protection rackets with corrupt officials. Those networks didn’t disappear. They metastasized. Today, they sit inside a cyber-scam economy worth billions — built on fraud, coercion, and trafficked workers. So can today’s triad members shed light on what was happening in Cambodia in the 1990's — and who Haing Ngor may have been dealing with?

In the last episode, we introduced the assassination of Henry Liu — a Taiwanese-American journalist killed in California in 1984 by members of the Bamboo Union. The killing had some similarities to the murder of Haing Ngor. In this episode, Patricia Nunan travels to Taipei to find out if that case can reveal any new truths about the Ngor killing.  After all, if a triad had the reach to carry out a killing on U.S. soil once — couldn’t it happen again? Nunan sits down with Chang An-lo, also known as “White Wolf,” a founding member of the Bamboo Union. He’s an “Original Gangster.” He was also a “blood brother” to of one of Liu’s assassins. Together, they dive into the Liu assassination to see if it offers any answers to the Ngor case.

Patricia Nunan begins to explore the question of which triad or organized crime syndicate had the capacity to carry out a killing in the United States. That search leads to another case: the 1984 assassination of Taiwanese-American journalist Henry Liu, carried out by members of the Bamboo Union — a powerful triad with a history of transnational violence. The parallels are circumstantial but also  -- hard to ignore. Two prominent Asian Americans. Both gunned down in California. This is a mini “cheat sheet” episode to introduce a complicated story. It sets the stage for a deeper investigation into the Bamboo Union, and its presence in Cambodia during the years leading up to Ngor’s death. The next episode, “Original Gangsters,” drops Friday, May 8, 2026.  

The Man We Call “Larry” Welcome to the launch of season three of Who Killed Haing Ngor. This season, we dive deeper into a key question:  If Haing Ngor was killed in Los Angeles, because of something that happened in Cambodia — then who had the reach to do that?  The answer is a triad – a transnational organized criminal group. Enter “Larry.” He was a business partner of Ngor’s. When a deal over a bank license fell apart, “Larry” threatened Ngor, saying he knew professional killers. A few months later, Ngor was dead. The LAPD focused on “botched robbery” narrative – locking up three teenaged gang-members. But authorities never seriously investigated “Larry.” Join Patricia Nunan as she works with the Innocence Center to explore Ngor’s turbulent final months. Her goal is - hopefully - to bring justice to the three men wrongfully convicted of his murder, and to finally do justice to Ngor’s memory.