July 15, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, we look at the underground world of Sister Ping. It's a story about desperation, ambition, and the shadowy world of human smuggling. It’s about the lengths people will go in search of a better life—and those who build their empires by making that journey possible.
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This series is hosted by Mary Kay McBrayer. Check out more of her work at www.marykaymcbrayer.com.
This episode was written by Grace Heerman
Developed by Scott Waxman, Emma DeMuth, and Jacob Bronstein
Associate Producer is Leo Culp
Produced by Antonio Enriquez
Theme Music by Tyler Cash
Executive Produced by Scott Waxman and Emma DeMuth
Special thanks to:
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Order Mary Kay's true crime book 'Madame Queen: The The Life and Crimes of Harlem’s Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair' here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
A diversion audio. A note this episode contains mature content
and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners.
Please take care in listening. It was a few hours
(00:28):
before dawn on June sixth, nineteen ninety three, as two
Park Service officers patrolled the Rockaway Peninsula beach in Queens,
this far outside of Manhattan. Only their headlights cut through
the pre dawn darkness. The minchit chatted preparing for an
uneventful night, when they spotted something moving toward their vehicle.
(00:50):
Two figures stumbled toward them from the beach, waving their
arms and looking shell shocked. If they got closer, the
officers could see they were middle aged Asian men, skeletonly thin.
The officers opened their car doors to help, and that's
when they heard them the screams coming from the water.
(01:14):
About one hundred yards off shore, a small, rusted cargo
ship had run aground along the peninsula. From where they
were standing on the beachfront, the officers could see that
the boat was about one hundred and fifty feet long
and the deck was crowded with people, far too many
people for any sanctioned voyage. As they ran toward the waterline.
(01:37):
The officers watched the panic stricken passengers jump over the
side of the vessel, tumbling twenty feet down into the
dark waves below. It may have been a warm New
York summer, but the ocean water was only fifty three degrees,
well within hypothermia range. Clearly, these men and women were
(01:59):
not well. They screamed for help in the crashing black waves,
and those who made it to the shore stumbled out
and vomited up sea water from their distended bellies. Those
who weren't as strong or nourished went into cardiac arrest
when they hit the water. The officers called in back
up and administered aid, but there was only so much
(02:20):
they could do. By morning, the shipwreck was all over
the news. Helicopters circled the crash site, beaming live footage
onto television screens across the city. Questions piled up, who
were these starving shipwrecked travelers, how did they get here?
And who was behind this. One of the many New
(02:43):
Yorkers watching the news footage that morning was Ching Choiping,
a stout woman in her mid forties who spoke almost
no English. She sat inside a small shop in Manhattan's
Chinatown eyes glued to the TV. To most, Ching Choi
Ping was an unassuming shopkeeper who sold clothes and goods
(03:05):
imported from China. She wore modest clothing and had the
demeanor of someone barely getting by in the big city.
But to those who truly knew her, Ching Choi Ping
was someone else Entirely. Along with her other identity came
another name, Sister Ping. And Sister Ping knew exactly where
(03:27):
those shipwrecked passengers had come from and how they got
to New York. She knew because she was the one
who brought them here. Welcome to the greatest true crime
(03:59):
stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, author of the
true crime book Madame Queen, the Life and crimes of
Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. Today's episode we're calling the
Snakehead of Chinatown. It's a story about desperation, ambition, and
the shadowy world of human smuggling. It's about the links
(04:23):
people will go in search of a better life and
those who build their empires by making that journey possible.
We'll get into all of it right after this quick break.
(04:52):
Stories of dangerous immigration are all around us in America
if you look for them. The circumstances that are easiest
for me to understand are the ones portrayed in television
shows because they have clear narrative arcs, even though that's
not how any situation exists in life. Remember the horror
movie His House or the Oregon Trail Limited series eighteen
(05:15):
eighty three. Those survivalist types of narratives make those of
us who have never been in that dire of a
situation wonder how bad did it have to get before
you put yourself through this on a chance of changing it.
I mean, you heard the top of the episode. What
(05:36):
would have to happen before you risked your life like that?
So let's talk about Sister Ping. Well, before we get
into it, let me just apologize in advance. I am
truly trying my best with the pronunciations, and I know
I'm going to get some wrong, but please know I
am trying to get them right. Ching Choi Ping, or
Sister Ping, as i'll call her from now on, was
(05:58):
born in nineteen forty nine to a humble home life.
Her parents came from a small village in China's Fujian Province,
where life was simple, and opportunities for upward mobility were few.
Little is known about her childhood years, but as a
young adult, Sister Ping did the thing everyone in her
life expected her to do. She married a meek but
(06:21):
responsible fishermen from a neighboring village. The two lived a
quiet life together in the early years of their marriage,
subsisting off the fish he caught in their meager profits.
But sometime in the mid seventies, the couple left China
for Hong Kong in search of better opportunities. There, Sister
Ping scraped together to open a convenience store and garnered
(06:44):
a reputation for her good business sense. She also gave
birth to four children. In nineteen eighty one, she made
an appointment at the United States Consulate in Hong Kong
in hopes of applying for United States visa. In her interview,
she told the consulate official that she wanted to go
to America to be a housekeeper, where she believed she
(07:06):
could make a better living for her children. Whether they
granted the visa is unknown, as is her method of transportation,
but nevertheless, later that year, Sister Ping arrived on US
soil alone, leaving her husband and children behind for the
time being. For as long as there have been borders,
(07:32):
there has been immigration. One might argue that before there
were borders, people were not sedentary, so even then we
moved around based on opportunity. But even if you don't
want to go that far into the rabbit hole, suffice
it to say that whenever one community faces barriers to
basic needs, things like oppressive political regimes, economic instability, harsh climate,
(07:55):
or illness, they move. Moving to create a better life
is a convincing ideal for many immigrants, when staying put
means living with little control over their future. The hard
(08:18):
part is finding a way out or in. When there's
a need, there will be an enterprising person to address it.
In the late twentieth century, immigration from China to the
US was surging. Fujian province, where Sister Ping was from,
became a major source of immigration, in particular due to
(08:39):
the economic hardship, political repression, and stringent family planning policies
in China. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, America, despite
its challenges, seemed to offer better opportunities. America's alleged meritocracy
is an enticing promise, and if the situation gets dire enough,
(09:00):
people will find a way, and if there's an opportunity
to cash in on a dire situation, Americans specifically will
find a way. Additionally, in nineteen eighty nine, President George H. W.
Bush issued two executive orders making it easier for Chinese
nationals to gain refugee status in America. In effect, any
(09:22):
Chinese adult could now be classified as a refugee. The
influx was swift and noticeable. By nineteen ninety five, the
CIA estimated that one hundred thousand Chinese nationals were being
smuggled to the US every year. In the seventies and eighties,
that average was only ten thousand per year. As more
(09:46):
and more legal immigrants began to make a life in America,
more and more who weren't eligible to immigrate wanted to
join them. But moving people illegally from one country to
another is not easy. In fact, it can be harrowing.
There are a few important things illegal immigration requires on
a grand scale like this. First is an extensive network
(10:11):
of contacts across the globe, as well as knowledge of
trade routes, maritime laws, and weak borders. It also requires
a savviness around authority and the confidence to outwit immigration officers.
Making a business of illegal immigration demands an entrepreneurial instinct
(10:31):
to capitalize on desperation, and the kind of callousness to
ignore what that desperation will tolerate. The task for most
(10:54):
immigrant families went like this. One adult family member would
arrive in New York and start working as quickly as possible.
They'd connect with any friends and family already in the city,
find cheap housing, and save as much money as they
could in hopes of sending it back to their loved ones.
(11:14):
One day, they'd have enough saved to pay passage for
those family members to join them in America, a tale
as old as America. The sending of the money wasn't
so simple, though. Many illegal immigrants wanted to avoid paper trails,
and the process of setting up a bank account and
wiring money along the usual channels was difficult and costly.
(11:38):
This is where Sister Ping spotted an opportunity and how
she initially became involved with illegal immigration in New York.
Remember how I told you she was a savvy businesswoman,
So back to Sister Ping's story. Once in New York
(12:01):
in nineteen eighty one, she opened another small variety store
in New York's Chinatown, just as she had done in
Hong Kong, and she grew her business, earned money, and
eventually arranged for her family to join her in the
United States. At the time, the Fujianese immigrant community in
New York was small, and Sister Ping's shop became a
(12:22):
gathering place for this group of New York newcomers. But
even as she became better known around the neighborhood, Sister
Ping kept a low profile. She spoke gruffly and wore modest,
simple clothing. Using her contacts in Fujian, she set up
what's called a remittance business, which would help immigrants send
(12:42):
their dollars to family and friends back home. In an
article about Sister Ping and The New Yorker, the operation
was described like this. A man working as a waiter
in New York could bring Sister Paying one thousand dollars
on a weeknight, pay her a ten dollars commission, and
be confident that by the next night someone would arrive
(13:03):
by motorbike to his parents' town to deliver the cash equivalent.
This service Sister Ping provided was often cheaper and faster
than a transfer through the Bank of China, with so
many illegal immigrants arriving in the city each week. Sister
Ping had a steady and growing client base, and at
(13:25):
ten dollars a pop per interaction in eighties dollars, she
was making a steady profit. I mean, it's what legit
banks do when you want to wire money out of
the country. But this remittance business wasn't the long game
for Sister Ping. It was just a way in. As
her network of associates and customers grew, she found herself
(13:47):
perfectly positioned to offer another, even more highly sought after service.
Instead of cash, Sister Ping wanted to deliver people. Sister
(14:11):
Ping wasn't the only one with this idea. Of course,
there was a name for those who provided this smuggling service, snakeheads.
The name came from the shape formed when long lines
of immigrants traveled on foot across borders and the men
and women at the head of those lines. Sister Ping
(14:31):
started trafficking people the same way she did with her
remittance business. Her network. Sister Ping gathered groups of trusted
associates in China, Hong Kong, New York, and other ports
around the world and stationed them as strategic handoff points
where travelers could be passed off to the next associate.
(14:52):
These routes were indirect and complex, which meant that they
could avoid suspicion and make the travelers more difficult to track.
Judging by the speed at which Sister Ping was able
to amass these associates and start her operation, some have
speculated that Sister Ping wasn't the first smuggler in her family.
(15:14):
Investigators suspect her father was a prominent snakehead too. They
also believed that it was a snakehead who got her
to America in the first place. Whatever the reason, Sister
Ping hit the ground running. She was very hands on
in the beginning, and she ran her operation meticulously. The
(15:35):
first people she brought on board were her family. The
first successful runs took this route. Her sister would greet
passengers in Hong Kong, provide them with false documents, and
take them shopping for clothes to ensure they looked like
nothing more than international tourists. Her brother managed a staging
(15:55):
post in Guatemala where the passengers would make a stopover
to avoid so suspision and complicate tracking. From there, passengers
would be taken to Mexico, where they might be hidden
in the false floor of a truck and driven across
the border into California. Sister Ping herself would then meet
(16:16):
the new arrivals in California and escort them personally to
New York via airplane. As you can imagine, the fee
for these services was steep. Sister Ping would charge anywhere
(16:37):
from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars per traveler. Snakehead
fees were so well known that the Fujianese immigrants in
New York City became known as eighteen thousand dollars men,
after the standard rate in the eighties. Want to hear
something horrifying that eighteen k amounts to more than seventy
(16:58):
thousand dollars in today's defy. Even then, though, and even
for well to do Chinese nationals, this fee was exorbitant,
which is why most immigrant hopefuls didn't pay it right away.
The typical routine was for them to pay a portion
upfront and arrive in the US indebted to their smugglers.
(17:19):
Paying off this debt could take years, and where there's debt,
there's extortion. Many immigrants found themselves indentured in garment factories
or restaurants, working off their fees under threat of violence.
A flourishing criminal underworld sprang up in Chinatown as a result,
and gangs found ways to capitalize, offering both protection or
(17:42):
extortion services depending on the client. Violent crime in New
York City skyrocketed all the while the demand for passage
kept going up. Sister Ping's operation grew quickly. By the
(18:13):
late nineteen eighties, she had established smuggling roots across multiple
continents and had affiliates in Thailand, Kenya, and Ecuador. As
demand grew, Sister Ping became unable to supervise the process
as carefully as she did in the beginning. Keeping things
in the family worked well initially because trust with family
members was already established, and as another security, her family
(18:35):
members would have little leverage and nowhere to hide in
the event that something went wrong. Sister Ping knew that
outsourcing was a tricky business, but eventually it became necessary.
In the nineties, she began hiring various freelancers and affiliates
to support and further expand the operation. But with that
(18:56):
growth came cracks in that meticulously laid foundation. By the
nineteen nineties, Sister Ping's operation was becoming an empire and
Sister Ping herself was something of a mogul. With the
(19:17):
incredible profit she was bringing in from her trafficking, Sister
Ping made some strategic investments that further extended her wealth.
Not only did she own the small Chinese goods shop
in Chinatown where she spent most of her days, but
she eventually purchased the five story building that housed it
for a reported three million dollars. To those in the know,
(19:40):
she seemed untouchable. But in addition to being shrewd in business,
Sister Ping was also wise. She knew that when you
play with fire, you will get burned. In order to
make her operation last in a neighborhood that was becoming
increasingly violent and volatile, she needed protection. For that she
(20:02):
knew there was only one place to look, Chinatown's biggest
seat of power, the Gangs. The biggest and most powerful
gang in Chinatown at the time was known as the
Fukching Gang. It was a ruthless group of young Fujianese
men who wore black, streaked their hair with bright colors,
(20:24):
and patrolled the neighborhood at night in black BMWs. The
Fukching Gang provided muscle to snakeheads and other powerful personalities
who had trouble collecting on debt's owed always traveling in
groups of three or four. Their preferred weapons were knives, hammers,
and ice picks. I don't know about y'all, but this
(20:46):
is kind of how my inner monologue reacted to the
information in that paragraph. Okay, hot, hot, hot, hammers and
ice picks, and then you I mean, I want to
redact all of my despicable reactions. But back on task.
The gang's leader was a charismatic, muscular young man who
(21:07):
went by the name A Ke. Sister Ping and Ake
certainly knew of each other in the nineteen eighties and
nineties as two of the most powerful stakeholders in Chinatown.
They might have just stayed out of each other's way
at first, but in nineteen eighty five, when the Fuk
Ching Gang was still getting it start, a Ke and
(21:28):
several other gang members attempted to rob Sister Ping. They'd
caught wind of where she kept her cash and figured
they'd try to get their hands on it. They even
held her daughter at gunpoint. This first burglary attempt was unsuccessful,
but Ake and his gang came back, and they eventually
(21:49):
ended up with twenty thousand dollars of Sister Ping's money.
So Sister Ping knew how powerful and dangerous the fuk
Ching Gang was. But she also knew that the only
way to protect herself and her business was to align
herself with those in power. So rather than seeking revenge,
she decided to form an alliance. Y'all, I am not
(22:13):
fit to be a mafiosa because I don't think I
could let that shit stand. But she was, and she did,
And here we go with the actual narrative. In nineteen
ninety one, years after the robbery, Sister Ping sent one
of her business partners to visit Ake at his apartment.
By this time, the Fukching Gang had gotten heavily involved
(22:33):
in the smuggling world themselves, and Ake had become a
successful snakehead in his own right. He had developed lucrative
connections at ports along America's coasts, as well as a
unique method for getting passengers off of their smuggling vessels
and onto shore. His method was known as offloading. As
the ships full of immigrants approached America's shores but were
(22:55):
still safely in international waters, Ake sent fishing boats man
by Fuqing Gang members to meet them, The passengers then
transferred from big boat to small boat and went to shore,
which eliminated the need for plane tickets or forged documents.
This was a method of transportation Sister Ping had not
(23:16):
yet attempted, and she saw an opportunity. When she and
Ak finally spoke, he immediately apologized for the burglary in
nineteen eighty five, to which Sister Ping replied that all
that was in the past. They were talking business now
real quick. Based on my theatrical knowledge of gangsters or
business people, to be honest, I would have never anticipated
(23:39):
that conversation an apology in acceptance, how very evolved. The
two made an arrangement in which Sister Ping would secure
the passengers and load them onto ships, and Ake would
(24:02):
offload the passengers onto smaller boats just outside American waters.
Then Ake's men would pick them up in U haul
trucks and drive them to wearhouses in Brooklyn, where they
would begin their new lives in New York. In their
initial agreement, Sister Ping paid Ake seven hundred and fifty
(24:22):
thousand dollars for his services on their first trial run.
It was the beginning of a mutually beneficial partnership. The
two continued their arrangement for the next twelve months without incident.
For a while, it seemed as though things could go
on like that forever. But that was before the Golden
(24:44):
Venture disaster. Now let's return to the shipwreck that started
this episode. That accident on Rockaway Peninsula. That was the
Golden Venture disaster, named after the vessel which ran aground
that day. Most of the passengers aboard the Golden Venture
(25:08):
began their month's long journey to New York in China
years before they ended up on that Rockaway shore. Sometime
in nineteen ninety one, they set off on foot to
the China Meanmar border, where they passed into Myanmar and
prepared for a month long trek through mountains into Thailand.
(25:29):
Once in Bangkok, they were kept in a crowded safe
house for two months while they waited for Sister Ping
and the other snakeheads involved in the arrangement to secure
a ship big enough for the group. The count had
reached three hundred passengers. Two years later, in February nineteen
(25:51):
ninety three, the ship finally departed Bangkok and on its
way it stopped by Mombasa, Kenya. Some of the passengers
having worked as sailors and fishermen knew immediately that the
vessel was too small to cross the Atlantic, not to
mention carry that amount of cargo, especially human cargo. The
(26:15):
ships holed was a cramped, windowless space about the size
of a two car garage, but the travelers had little choice.
Armed gang members were there to usher them on board,
and so the voyage began one hundred and twenty days
from Bangkok to Mombasa, Kenya, then around the Cape of
(26:35):
Good Hope, one of the most dangerous sailing routes on
the planet. The three hundred passengers survived in a diet
of rice, peanuts, dirty water, and spoiled food. There was
one bathroom aboard. In strict rules, passengers could emerge to
the deck only when they were safely in international waters.
(26:57):
Otherwise they were to remain in the cramped, sweltering hold
to avoid any chance of being seen. There were reports
of beatings by the Gangan forces on board, in several
incidents of rape. I don't know if the passengers had
bargained for all this hardship, but imagine knowing it might
(27:18):
be like this, and still thinking, yes, I'll take that
over this. The passengers came mostly from the same villages
and Fujian province that had brought Sister Ping to America.
Some of them could have been classified as refugees, but
most were driven by the promise that in one year
(27:40):
in America they could make what it would take them
a decade to earn back home. Against the odds, the
Golden Venture survived the treacherous four month journey to arrive
on the East coast of the United States in June
(28:02):
nineteen ninety three. The plan was for Ake to offload
the ship in the Atlantic and bring the passengers ashore
on smaller boats, as he had done for Sister Ping
so many times before. But in the months preceding the
Golden Venture's arrival, trouble had been brewing inside his gang.
(28:23):
Disgruntled gang members were jealous of Ake's earnings and formed
their own rival gang. Violence broke out and police took notice,
causing Ake to flee to China to avoid arrest. So
by the time the Golden Venture arrived, there was no
one there to transport the passengers. And let's remember again
(28:46):
how desperate these men, women and children must have been.
For four months they'd been at sea, starving, confined, to
a sweltering twenty by forty foot metal cargo hold America
for freedom. Their futures were so close they could touch them.
No one was coming to bring them to shore safely.
(29:09):
If they were discovered, so be it. The crew decided
to run the ship aground in the rockaways, which brings
us back to the scene that started our story. Panic
stricken passengers jumping twenty feet overboard into the frigid water.
Ten passengers died in their attempt to reach the shore.
(29:29):
Two hundred and seventy six were taken into custody to
await their fate in America. The publicity of the incident
was bad news for Sister Pin, whether she realized it
or not. Her business relied on secret keeping and divasion,
(29:52):
two things she was very good at. Similar tragedies had
happened before. It's possible that even as Sister Pe watched
the crash footage on the morning news, it felt like
business as usual. But what she didn't know was that
the FBI had been on to Sister Ping for years.
They were working on a case against her, but lacked
(30:15):
enough direct evidence to officially make an arrest. This might
have just been the missing piece After the Golden Venture,
disaster investigators began methodically closing in a short time later,
a team of FBI agents raided the large Chinatown building
Sister Ping owned. They didn't find Sister Ping herself, but
(30:38):
what they did find was possibly even more valuable. It
was a trove of incriminating evidence, e laminating machine, fake passports,
forged drivers' licenses, bogus security cards, and stacks of employment
authorization forms. It was, as prosecutors would later call it,
(30:59):
the tool us of an alien smuggling trade. But unfortunately
for them, Sister Ping had already left the country. On
September twentieth, nineteen ninety four, she entered Hong Kong using
her own passport, and from that moment on it was
as if she had disappeared, at least on paper. For
(31:28):
the next four years, Sister Ping continued her lucrative smuggling
operations from the comfort of her family's home in China.
Direct shipments to US shores had become too risky after
the Golden Venture, but Sister Ping simply adapted. She began
re routing human cargo through Central and South America. By now,
(31:49):
US authorities knew where she was, and they knew she
was still in operation, but they couldn't touch her. China
had no extradition treaty with the United States. She remained
frustratingly beyond their legal reach, but the FBI wasn't giving up.
Agents assumed that if Sister Ping was still in business,
(32:10):
she was still traveling and likely under false identities. If
they could figure out what these identities were, maybe they'd
have a shot at intercepting her. They began working with
informants in Fujian, painstakingly assembling a family tree in hopes
of catching her traveling under one of her family member's names.
(32:32):
It was a long shot, but in April of two thousand,
u S authorities in Hong Kong received a tip that
Sister Ping's son had a ticket on an upcoming Korean
Air flight. Hong Kong police mobilized, sending dozens of officers
to the airport and undercovered detectives to stake out the
(32:52):
Korean Air desk, and their patients paid off. When the
day of the flight arrived there, she was a stout
woman who resembled Sister Ping standing near the check encounter.
Officers closed in and when they searched her purse, they
found three Belizian passports that didn't belong to her, a
(33:14):
fistful of loose passport photos, and thirty one thousand dollars
in neat stacks of US currency. Finally, after all these
years evading notice, Sister Ping was in custody. Once extradited
(33:44):
back to the US, Sister Ping remained calm, polite, even optimistic.
According to an article from The New Yorker, she was
adamant that she didn't do anything wrong and that as
soon as she spoke to the judge in New York,
she would be released. I guess after decades outsmarting legal system,
you'd start to feel pretty untouchable. Her trial began in
(34:07):
May of two thousand and five and lasted a month.
The prosecution described her as quote one of the most
powerful and most successful alien smugglers of our time, but
her defense attorney insisted she was nothing but a misunderstood
business woman whose only offense was running an underground banking operation.
(34:31):
He called her the tragic scapegoat of a paranoid system,
but the jury didn't buy it. On June twenty second,
two thousand and five, Sister Ping was found guilty of
conspiracy to smuggle aliens, money laundering, and trafficking ransom. At
her sentencing hearing, she gave an impassioned hour long speech
(34:53):
explaining how in every major story discussed at trial, she
was the victim, and how the evidence in the trial
had been faked. She said, everybody can tell you that
Sister Ping is working in the store every day. When
she finally finished, the judge made a brief and exasperated
comment about how her version of events quote defies belief,
(35:17):
and handed down the maximum sentence of thirty five years
in prison. As Sister Ping was let out of the courtroom,
she smiled and waved at her family and supporters. And
(35:37):
Sister Ping had many, many supporters, which brings me to
one of the most fascinating elements of this story, Sister
Ping's identity in the history books. Over two decades, Sister
Ping made an estimated forty million dollars bringing desperate Chinese men, women,
(35:58):
and children into America. Legally, she was the orchestrator of
a massive underground network that stretched across Asia, Africa, and
the Americas. Dozens and dozens of people died on her watch.
Many people wouldn't hesitate to call her a ruthless kingpin
with little regard for human life who turned human desperation
(36:21):
into profit. But plenty of others would call her a hero.
The Fujinese community in Chinatown was heartbroken at the news
of her arrest. To many, it felt like Robin Hood
was being put on trial. The World Journal reported that
villagers and Sister Ping's hometown volunteered to do prison time
(36:42):
on her behalf. They described her as a living Buddha.
For them, there was no moral ambiguity in what she
was doing. The fees she demanded, the tactic she used,
the danger she put them in on their journeys across
the globe, all were worth it for the promise of
a future in America. Depending on who you ask, she's
(37:07):
either the villain or the hero of the story. Speaking
of those supporters, there's one more question. You might be wondering.
What became of the two hundred and seventy six men, women,
and children who survived the Golden Venture incident. After making
(37:30):
it to shore that night, all of the passengers were
eventually taken into custody. The goal for all of them
was to be granted asylum in the United States, but
because the incident had thrown the US immigration system into
such an unfavorable light, the government was highly selective. Only
(37:50):
ten percent of them were granted asylum. About half of
the remaining passengers were deported, and the rest found themselves
trapped in immigration limbo, fighting their cases for years from
county jails and detention facilities around the country. In nineteen
ninety seven, after spending nearly four years behind bars, the
(38:14):
remaining fifty three passengers received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton,
but it was conditional. They weren't totally free to go.
They were placed on humanitarian parole. This meant that they
were allowed to stay in America, work and build a life,
but they were not given legal permanent residents or even
(38:37):
the chance to work toward it. And worst of all,
they were subject to deportation any day. The passengers eventually
found homes across the country, started working, got married, and
grew families, but constantly hanging over them was the knowledge
that they could be sent away at any time. The
lives they were building could vanish at any moment. According
(39:01):
to reporting in The New Yorker and The World Journal,
several of the Golden Venture passengers who had been deported
have since returned to America illegally. Disasters like the Golden
Venture are not a deterrent. Considering the stakes, Incidents like
this are an acceptable risk, and where there are desperate migrants,
(39:25):
there will be snakeheads to guide their passage. It's believed
that Sister Ping's family carried on the business after her imprisonment,
but certainly without her panache. In twenty fourteen, after serving
just fourteen years of her thirty five year sentence, Sister
Ping died of pancreatic cancer. Thousands of mourners attended her
(39:50):
funeral on Canal Street in Manhattan. I'd like to shout
(40:14):
out the excellent sources I've relied on for this episode.
Two articles for The New Yorker by Patrick Radden Keef,
titled The Snakehead and a Path out of Purgatory. The
first gives a fantastic look at Sister Ping's rise to
power and the economic forces that fueled illegal immigration in
the eighties and nineties. The second piece explores the aftermath
(40:37):
of the Golden Venture tragedy and the reverberations it's still
causing an American immigration policy today. If you're interested in
learning more, I recommend checking out Patrick Radden Keef's book,
also called The Snakehead. For an even deeper dive into
Sister Ping's life and crimes. For more information about this
(40:57):
case and others we cover on the show, visit diversion
audio dot com. The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
is a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer,
and I hosted this episode. This episode was written by
Grace Human. Our show is produced by Leo Culp and
(41:20):
edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Executive
produced by Scott Waxman, and one more thing before I Go.
If you haven't already, I'll love you forever if you
get my true crime book, Madam Queen, The Life and
Crimes of Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. Actually, if you
(41:42):
like the story of Sister Payne, you might like Stephanie
Sinclair's even more. There's a link to do it your
favorite retailer in our show's notes
A diversion audio. A note this episode contains mature content
and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners.
Please take care in listening. It was a few hours
(00:28):
before dawn on June sixth, nineteen ninety three, as two
Park Service officers patrolled the Rockaway Peninsula beach in Queens,
this far outside of Manhattan. Only their headlights cut through
the pre dawn darkness. The minchit chatted preparing for an
uneventful night, when they spotted something moving toward their vehicle.
(00:50):
Two figures stumbled toward them from the beach, waving their
arms and looking shell shocked. If they got closer, the
officers could see they were middle aged Asian men, skeletonly thin.
The officers opened their car doors to help, and that's
when they heard them the screams coming from the water.
(01:14):
About one hundred yards off shore, a small, rusted cargo
ship had run aground along the peninsula. From where they
were standing on the beachfront, the officers could see that
the boat was about one hundred and fifty feet long
and the deck was crowded with people, far too many
people for any sanctioned voyage. As they ran toward the waterline.
(01:37):
The officers watched the panic stricken passengers jump over the
side of the vessel, tumbling twenty feet down into the
dark waves below. It may have been a warm New
York summer, but the ocean water was only fifty three degrees,
well within hypothermia range. Clearly, these men and women were
(01:59):
not well. They screamed for help in the crashing black waves,
and those who made it to the shore stumbled out
and vomited up sea water from their distended bellies. Those
who weren't as strong or nourished went into cardiac arrest
when they hit the water. The officers called in back
up and administered aid, but there was only so much
(02:20):
they could do. By morning, the shipwreck was all over
the news. Helicopters circled the crash site, beaming live footage
onto television screens across the city. Questions piled up, who
were these starving shipwrecked travelers, how did they get here?
And who was behind this. One of the many New
(02:43):
Yorkers watching the news footage that morning was Ching Choiping,
a stout woman in her mid forties who spoke almost
no English. She sat inside a small shop in Manhattan's
Chinatown eyes glued to the TV. To most, Ching Choi
Ping was an unassuming shopkeeper who sold clothes and goods
(03:05):
imported from China. She wore modest clothing and had the
demeanor of someone barely getting by in the big city.
But to those who truly knew her, Ching Choi Ping
was someone else Entirely. Along with her other identity came
another name, Sister Ping. And Sister Ping knew exactly where
(03:27):
those shipwrecked passengers had come from and how they got
to New York. She knew because she was the one
who brought them here. Welcome to the greatest true crime
(03:59):
stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, author of the
true crime book Madame Queen, the Life and crimes of
Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. Today's episode we're calling the
Snakehead of Chinatown. It's a story about desperation, ambition, and
the shadowy world of human smuggling. It's about the links
(04:23):
people will go in search of a better life and
those who build their empires by making that journey possible.
We'll get into all of it right after this quick break.
(04:52):
Stories of dangerous immigration are all around us in America
if you look for them. The circumstances that are easiest
for me to understand are the ones portrayed in television
shows because they have clear narrative arcs, even though that's
not how any situation exists in life. Remember the horror
movie His House or the Oregon Trail Limited series eighteen
(05:15):
eighty three. Those survivalist types of narratives make those of
us who have never been in that dire of a
situation wonder how bad did it have to get before
you put yourself through this on a chance of changing it.
I mean, you heard the top of the episode. What
(05:36):
would have to happen before you risked your life like that?
So let's talk about Sister Ping. Well, before we get
into it, let me just apologize in advance. I am
truly trying my best with the pronunciations, and I know
I'm going to get some wrong, but please know I
am trying to get them right. Ching Choi Ping, or
Sister Ping, as i'll call her from now on, was
(05:58):
born in nineteen forty nine to a humble home life.
Her parents came from a small village in China's Fujian Province,
where life was simple, and opportunities for upward mobility were few.
Little is known about her childhood years, but as a
young adult, Sister Ping did the thing everyone in her
life expected her to do. She married a meek but
(06:21):
responsible fishermen from a neighboring village. The two lived a
quiet life together in the early years of their marriage,
subsisting off the fish he caught in their meager profits.
But sometime in the mid seventies, the couple left China
for Hong Kong in search of better opportunities. There, Sister
Ping scraped together to open a convenience store and garnered
(06:44):
a reputation for her good business sense. She also gave
birth to four children. In nineteen eighty one, she made
an appointment at the United States Consulate in Hong Kong
in hopes of applying for United States visa. In her interview,
she told the consulate official that she wanted to go
to America to be a housekeeper, where she believed she
(07:06):
could make a better living for her children. Whether they
granted the visa is unknown, as is her method of transportation,
but nevertheless, later that year, Sister Ping arrived on US
soil alone, leaving her husband and children behind for the
time being. For as long as there have been borders,
(07:32):
there has been immigration. One might argue that before there
were borders, people were not sedentary, so even then we
moved around based on opportunity. But even if you don't
want to go that far into the rabbit hole, suffice
it to say that whenever one community faces barriers to
basic needs, things like oppressive political regimes, economic instability, harsh climate,
(07:55):
or illness, they move. Moving to create a better life
is a convincing ideal for many immigrants, when staying put
means living with little control over their future. The hard
(08:18):
part is finding a way out or in. When there's
a need, there will be an enterprising person to address it.
In the late twentieth century, immigration from China to the
US was surging. Fujian province, where Sister Ping was from,
became a major source of immigration, in particular due to
(08:39):
the economic hardship, political repression, and stringent family planning policies
in China. In the nineteen eighties and nineties, America, despite
its challenges, seemed to offer better opportunities. America's alleged meritocracy
is an enticing promise, and if the situation gets dire enough,
(09:00):
people will find a way, and if there's an opportunity
to cash in on a dire situation, Americans specifically will
find a way. Additionally, in nineteen eighty nine, President George H. W.
Bush issued two executive orders making it easier for Chinese
nationals to gain refugee status in America. In effect, any
(09:22):
Chinese adult could now be classified as a refugee. The
influx was swift and noticeable. By nineteen ninety five, the
CIA estimated that one hundred thousand Chinese nationals were being
smuggled to the US every year. In the seventies and eighties,
that average was only ten thousand per year. As more
(09:46):
and more legal immigrants began to make a life in America,
more and more who weren't eligible to immigrate wanted to
join them. But moving people illegally from one country to
another is not easy. In fact, it can be harrowing.
There are a few important things illegal immigration requires on
a grand scale like this. First is an extensive network
(10:11):
of contacts across the globe, as well as knowledge of
trade routes, maritime laws, and weak borders. It also requires
a savviness around authority and the confidence to outwit immigration officers.
Making a business of illegal immigration demands an entrepreneurial instinct
(10:31):
to capitalize on desperation, and the kind of callousness to
ignore what that desperation will tolerate. The task for most
(10:54):
immigrant families went like this. One adult family member would
arrive in New York and start working as quickly as possible.
They'd connect with any friends and family already in the city,
find cheap housing, and save as much money as they
could in hopes of sending it back to their loved ones.
(11:14):
One day, they'd have enough saved to pay passage for
those family members to join them in America, a tale
as old as America. The sending of the money wasn't
so simple, though. Many illegal immigrants wanted to avoid paper trails,
and the process of setting up a bank account and
wiring money along the usual channels was difficult and costly.
(11:38):
This is where Sister Ping spotted an opportunity and how
she initially became involved with illegal immigration in New York.
Remember how I told you she was a savvy businesswoman,
So back to Sister Ping's story. Once in New York
(12:01):
in nineteen eighty one, she opened another small variety store
in New York's Chinatown, just as she had done in
Hong Kong, and she grew her business, earned money, and
eventually arranged for her family to join her in the
United States. At the time, the Fujianese immigrant community in
New York was small, and Sister Ping's shop became a
(12:22):
gathering place for this group of New York newcomers. But
even as she became better known around the neighborhood, Sister
Ping kept a low profile. She spoke gruffly and wore modest,
simple clothing. Using her contacts in Fujian, she set up
what's called a remittance business, which would help immigrants send
(12:42):
their dollars to family and friends back home. In an
article about Sister Ping and The New Yorker, the operation
was described like this. A man working as a waiter
in New York could bring Sister Paying one thousand dollars
on a weeknight, pay her a ten dollars commission, and
be confident that by the next night someone would arrive
(13:03):
by motorbike to his parents' town to deliver the cash equivalent.
This service Sister Ping provided was often cheaper and faster
than a transfer through the Bank of China, with so
many illegal immigrants arriving in the city each week. Sister
Ping had a steady and growing client base, and at
(13:25):
ten dollars a pop per interaction in eighties dollars, she
was making a steady profit. I mean, it's what legit
banks do when you want to wire money out of
the country. But this remittance business wasn't the long game
for Sister Ping. It was just a way in. As
her network of associates and customers grew, she found herself
(13:47):
perfectly positioned to offer another, even more highly sought after service.
Instead of cash, Sister Ping wanted to deliver people. Sister
(14:11):
Ping wasn't the only one with this idea. Of course,
there was a name for those who provided this smuggling service, snakeheads.
The name came from the shape formed when long lines
of immigrants traveled on foot across borders and the men
and women at the head of those lines. Sister Ping
(14:31):
started trafficking people the same way she did with her
remittance business. Her network. Sister Ping gathered groups of trusted
associates in China, Hong Kong, New York, and other ports
around the world and stationed them as strategic handoff points
where travelers could be passed off to the next associate.
(14:52):
These routes were indirect and complex, which meant that they
could avoid suspicion and make the travelers more difficult to track.
Judging by the speed at which Sister Ping was able
to amass these associates and start her operation, some have
speculated that Sister Ping wasn't the first smuggler in her family.
(15:14):
Investigators suspect her father was a prominent snakehead too. They
also believed that it was a snakehead who got her
to America in the first place. Whatever the reason, Sister
Ping hit the ground running. She was very hands on
in the beginning, and she ran her operation meticulously. The
(15:35):
first people she brought on board were her family. The
first successful runs took this route. Her sister would greet
passengers in Hong Kong, provide them with false documents, and
take them shopping for clothes to ensure they looked like
nothing more than international tourists. Her brother managed a staging
(15:55):
post in Guatemala where the passengers would make a stopover
to avoid so suspision and complicate tracking. From there, passengers
would be taken to Mexico, where they might be hidden
in the false floor of a truck and driven across
the border into California. Sister Ping herself would then meet
(16:16):
the new arrivals in California and escort them personally to
New York via airplane. As you can imagine, the fee
for these services was steep. Sister Ping would charge anywhere
(16:37):
from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars per traveler. Snakehead
fees were so well known that the Fujianese immigrants in
New York City became known as eighteen thousand dollars men,
after the standard rate in the eighties. Want to hear
something horrifying that eighteen k amounts to more than seventy
(16:58):
thousand dollars in today's defy. Even then, though, and even
for well to do Chinese nationals, this fee was exorbitant,
which is why most immigrant hopefuls didn't pay it right away.
The typical routine was for them to pay a portion
upfront and arrive in the US indebted to their smugglers.
(17:19):
Paying off this debt could take years, and where there's debt,
there's extortion. Many immigrants found themselves indentured in garment factories
or restaurants, working off their fees under threat of violence.
A flourishing criminal underworld sprang up in Chinatown as a result,
and gangs found ways to capitalize, offering both protection or
(17:42):
extortion services depending on the client. Violent crime in New
York City skyrocketed all the while the demand for passage
kept going up. Sister Ping's operation grew quickly. By the
(18:13):
late nineteen eighties, she had established smuggling roots across multiple
continents and had affiliates in Thailand, Kenya, and Ecuador. As
demand grew, Sister Ping became unable to supervise the process
as carefully as she did in the beginning. Keeping things
in the family worked well initially because trust with family
members was already established, and as another security, her family
(18:35):
members would have little leverage and nowhere to hide in
the event that something went wrong. Sister Ping knew that
outsourcing was a tricky business, but eventually it became necessary.
In the nineties, she began hiring various freelancers and affiliates
to support and further expand the operation. But with that
(18:56):
growth came cracks in that meticulously laid foundation. By the
nineteen nineties, Sister Ping's operation was becoming an empire and
Sister Ping herself was something of a mogul. With the
(19:17):
incredible profit she was bringing in from her trafficking, Sister
Ping made some strategic investments that further extended her wealth.
Not only did she own the small Chinese goods shop
in Chinatown where she spent most of her days, but
she eventually purchased the five story building that housed it
for a reported three million dollars. To those in the know,
(19:40):
she seemed untouchable. But in addition to being shrewd in business,
Sister Ping was also wise. She knew that when you
play with fire, you will get burned. In order to
make her operation last in a neighborhood that was becoming
increasingly violent and volatile, she needed protection. For that she
(20:02):
knew there was only one place to look, Chinatown's biggest
seat of power, the Gangs. The biggest and most powerful
gang in Chinatown at the time was known as the
Fukching Gang. It was a ruthless group of young Fujianese
men who wore black, streaked their hair with bright colors,
(20:24):
and patrolled the neighborhood at night in black BMWs. The
Fukching Gang provided muscle to snakeheads and other powerful personalities
who had trouble collecting on debt's owed always traveling in
groups of three or four. Their preferred weapons were knives, hammers,
and ice picks. I don't know about y'all, but this
(20:46):
is kind of how my inner monologue reacted to the
information in that paragraph. Okay, hot, hot, hot, hammers and
ice picks, and then you I mean, I want to
redact all of my despicable reactions. But back on task.
The gang's leader was a charismatic, muscular young man who
(21:07):
went by the name A Ke. Sister Ping and Ake
certainly knew of each other in the nineteen eighties and
nineties as two of the most powerful stakeholders in Chinatown.
They might have just stayed out of each other's way
at first, but in nineteen eighty five, when the Fuk
Ching Gang was still getting it start, a Ke and
(21:28):
several other gang members attempted to rob Sister Ping. They'd
caught wind of where she kept her cash and figured
they'd try to get their hands on it. They even
held her daughter at gunpoint. This first burglary attempt was unsuccessful,
but Ake and his gang came back, and they eventually
(21:49):
ended up with twenty thousand dollars of Sister Ping's money.
So Sister Ping knew how powerful and dangerous the fuk
Ching Gang was. But she also knew that the only
way to protect herself and her business was to align
herself with those in power. So rather than seeking revenge,
she decided to form an alliance. Y'all, I am not
(22:13):
fit to be a mafiosa because I don't think I
could let that shit stand. But she was, and she did,
And here we go with the actual narrative. In nineteen
ninety one, years after the robbery, Sister Ping sent one
of her business partners to visit Ake at his apartment.
By this time, the Fukching Gang had gotten heavily involved
(22:33):
in the smuggling world themselves, and Ake had become a
successful snakehead in his own right. He had developed lucrative
connections at ports along America's coasts, as well as a
unique method for getting passengers off of their smuggling vessels
and onto shore. His method was known as offloading. As
the ships full of immigrants approached America's shores but were
(22:55):
still safely in international waters, Ake sent fishing boats man
by Fuqing Gang members to meet them, The passengers then
transferred from big boat to small boat and went to shore,
which eliminated the need for plane tickets or forged documents.
This was a method of transportation Sister Ping had not
(23:16):
yet attempted, and she saw an opportunity. When she and
Ak finally spoke, he immediately apologized for the burglary in
nineteen eighty five, to which Sister Ping replied that all
that was in the past. They were talking business now
real quick. Based on my theatrical knowledge of gangsters or
business people, to be honest, I would have never anticipated
(23:39):
that conversation an apology in acceptance, how very evolved. The
two made an arrangement in which Sister Ping would secure
the passengers and load them onto ships, and Ake would
(24:02):
offload the passengers onto smaller boats just outside American waters.
Then Ake's men would pick them up in U haul
trucks and drive them to wearhouses in Brooklyn, where they
would begin their new lives in New York. In their
initial agreement, Sister Ping paid Ake seven hundred and fifty
(24:22):
thousand dollars for his services on their first trial run.
It was the beginning of a mutually beneficial partnership. The
two continued their arrangement for the next twelve months without incident.
For a while, it seemed as though things could go
on like that forever. But that was before the Golden
(24:44):
Venture disaster. Now let's return to the shipwreck that started
this episode. That accident on Rockaway Peninsula. That was the
Golden Venture disaster, named after the vessel which ran aground
that day. Most of the passengers aboard the Golden Venture
(25:08):
began their month's long journey to New York in China
years before they ended up on that Rockaway shore. Sometime
in nineteen ninety one, they set off on foot to
the China Meanmar border, where they passed into Myanmar and
prepared for a month long trek through mountains into Thailand.
(25:29):
Once in Bangkok, they were kept in a crowded safe
house for two months while they waited for Sister Ping
and the other snakeheads involved in the arrangement to secure
a ship big enough for the group. The count had
reached three hundred passengers. Two years later, in February nineteen
(25:51):
ninety three, the ship finally departed Bangkok and on its
way it stopped by Mombasa, Kenya. Some of the passengers
having worked as sailors and fishermen knew immediately that the
vessel was too small to cross the Atlantic, not to
mention carry that amount of cargo, especially human cargo. The
(26:15):
ships holed was a cramped, windowless space about the size
of a two car garage, but the travelers had little choice.
Armed gang members were there to usher them on board,
and so the voyage began one hundred and twenty days
from Bangkok to Mombasa, Kenya, then around the Cape of
(26:35):
Good Hope, one of the most dangerous sailing routes on
the planet. The three hundred passengers survived in a diet
of rice, peanuts, dirty water, and spoiled food. There was
one bathroom aboard. In strict rules, passengers could emerge to
the deck only when they were safely in international waters.
(26:57):
Otherwise they were to remain in the cramped, sweltering hold
to avoid any chance of being seen. There were reports
of beatings by the Gangan forces on board, in several
incidents of rape. I don't know if the passengers had
bargained for all this hardship, but imagine knowing it might
(27:18):
be like this, and still thinking, yes, I'll take that
over this. The passengers came mostly from the same villages
and Fujian province that had brought Sister Ping to America.
Some of them could have been classified as refugees, but
most were driven by the promise that in one year
(27:40):
in America they could make what it would take them
a decade to earn back home. Against the odds, the
Golden Venture survived the treacherous four month journey to arrive
on the East coast of the United States in June
(28:02):
nineteen ninety three. The plan was for Ake to offload
the ship in the Atlantic and bring the passengers ashore
on smaller boats, as he had done for Sister Ping
so many times before. But in the months preceding the
Golden Venture's arrival, trouble had been brewing inside his gang.
(28:23):
Disgruntled gang members were jealous of Ake's earnings and formed
their own rival gang. Violence broke out and police took notice,
causing Ake to flee to China to avoid arrest. So
by the time the Golden Venture arrived, there was no
one there to transport the passengers. And let's remember again
(28:46):
how desperate these men, women and children must have been.
For four months they'd been at sea, starving, confined, to
a sweltering twenty by forty foot metal cargo hold America
for freedom. Their futures were so close they could touch them.
No one was coming to bring them to shore safely.
(29:09):
If they were discovered, so be it. The crew decided
to run the ship aground in the rockaways, which brings
us back to the scene that started our story. Panic
stricken passengers jumping twenty feet overboard into the frigid water.
Ten passengers died in their attempt to reach the shore.
(29:29):
Two hundred and seventy six were taken into custody to
await their fate in America. The publicity of the incident
was bad news for Sister Pin, whether she realized it
or not. Her business relied on secret keeping and divasion,
(29:52):
two things she was very good at. Similar tragedies had
happened before. It's possible that even as Sister Pe watched
the crash footage on the morning news, it felt like
business as usual. But what she didn't know was that
the FBI had been on to Sister Ping for years.
They were working on a case against her, but lacked
(30:15):
enough direct evidence to officially make an arrest. This might
have just been the missing piece After the Golden Venture,
disaster investigators began methodically closing in a short time later,
a team of FBI agents raided the large Chinatown building
Sister Ping owned. They didn't find Sister Ping herself, but
(30:38):
what they did find was possibly even more valuable. It
was a trove of incriminating evidence, e laminating machine, fake passports,
forged drivers' licenses, bogus security cards, and stacks of employment
authorization forms. It was, as prosecutors would later call it,
(30:59):
the tool us of an alien smuggling trade. But unfortunately
for them, Sister Ping had already left the country. On
September twentieth, nineteen ninety four, she entered Hong Kong using
her own passport, and from that moment on it was
as if she had disappeared, at least on paper. For
(31:28):
the next four years, Sister Ping continued her lucrative smuggling
operations from the comfort of her family's home in China.
Direct shipments to US shores had become too risky after
the Golden Venture, but Sister Ping simply adapted. She began
re routing human cargo through Central and South America. By now,
(31:49):
US authorities knew where she was, and they knew she
was still in operation, but they couldn't touch her. China
had no extradition treaty with the United States. She remained
frustratingly beyond their legal reach, but the FBI wasn't giving up.
Agents assumed that if Sister Ping was still in business,
(32:10):
she was still traveling and likely under false identities. If
they could figure out what these identities were, maybe they'd
have a shot at intercepting her. They began working with
informants in Fujian, painstakingly assembling a family tree in hopes
of catching her traveling under one of her family member's names.
(32:32):
It was a long shot, but in April of two thousand,
u S authorities in Hong Kong received a tip that
Sister Ping's son had a ticket on an upcoming Korean
Air flight. Hong Kong police mobilized, sending dozens of officers
to the airport and undercovered detectives to stake out the
(32:52):
Korean Air desk, and their patients paid off. When the
day of the flight arrived there, she was a stout
woman who resembled Sister Ping standing near the check encounter.
Officers closed in and when they searched her purse, they
found three Belizian passports that didn't belong to her, a
(33:14):
fistful of loose passport photos, and thirty one thousand dollars
in neat stacks of US currency. Finally, after all these
years evading notice, Sister Ping was in custody. Once extradited
(33:44):
back to the US, Sister Ping remained calm, polite, even optimistic.
According to an article from The New Yorker, she was
adamant that she didn't do anything wrong and that as
soon as she spoke to the judge in New York,
she would be released. I guess after decades outsmarting legal system,
you'd start to feel pretty untouchable. Her trial began in
(34:07):
May of two thousand and five and lasted a month.
The prosecution described her as quote one of the most
powerful and most successful alien smugglers of our time, but
her defense attorney insisted she was nothing but a misunderstood
business woman whose only offense was running an underground banking operation.
(34:31):
He called her the tragic scapegoat of a paranoid system,
but the jury didn't buy it. On June twenty second,
two thousand and five, Sister Ping was found guilty of
conspiracy to smuggle aliens, money laundering, and trafficking ransom. At
her sentencing hearing, she gave an impassioned hour long speech
(34:53):
explaining how in every major story discussed at trial, she
was the victim, and how the evidence in the trial
had been faked. She said, everybody can tell you that
Sister Ping is working in the store every day. When
she finally finished, the judge made a brief and exasperated
comment about how her version of events quote defies belief,
(35:17):
and handed down the maximum sentence of thirty five years
in prison. As Sister Ping was let out of the courtroom,
she smiled and waved at her family and supporters. And
(35:37):
Sister Ping had many, many supporters, which brings me to
one of the most fascinating elements of this story, Sister
Ping's identity in the history books. Over two decades, Sister
Ping made an estimated forty million dollars bringing desperate Chinese men, women,
(35:58):
and children into America. Legally, she was the orchestrator of
a massive underground network that stretched across Asia, Africa, and
the Americas. Dozens and dozens of people died on her watch.
Many people wouldn't hesitate to call her a ruthless kingpin
with little regard for human life who turned human desperation
(36:21):
into profit. But plenty of others would call her a hero.
The Fujinese community in Chinatown was heartbroken at the news
of her arrest. To many, it felt like Robin Hood
was being put on trial. The World Journal reported that
villagers and Sister Ping's hometown volunteered to do prison time
(36:42):
on her behalf. They described her as a living Buddha.
For them, there was no moral ambiguity in what she
was doing. The fees she demanded, the tactic she used,
the danger she put them in on their journeys across
the globe, all were worth it for the promise of
a future in America. Depending on who you ask, she's
(37:07):
either the villain or the hero of the story. Speaking
of those supporters, there's one more question. You might be wondering.
What became of the two hundred and seventy six men, women,
and children who survived the Golden Venture incident. After making
(37:30):
it to shore that night, all of the passengers were
eventually taken into custody. The goal for all of them
was to be granted asylum in the United States, but
because the incident had thrown the US immigration system into
such an unfavorable light, the government was highly selective. Only
(37:50):
ten percent of them were granted asylum. About half of
the remaining passengers were deported, and the rest found themselves
trapped in immigration limbo, fighting their cases for years from
county jails and detention facilities around the country. In nineteen
ninety seven, after spending nearly four years behind bars, the
(38:14):
remaining fifty three passengers received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton,
but it was conditional. They weren't totally free to go.
They were placed on humanitarian parole. This meant that they
were allowed to stay in America, work and build a life,
but they were not given legal permanent residents or even
(38:37):
the chance to work toward it. And worst of all,
they were subject to deportation any day. The passengers eventually
found homes across the country, started working, got married, and
grew families, but constantly hanging over them was the knowledge
that they could be sent away at any time. The
lives they were building could vanish at any moment. According
(39:01):
to reporting in The New Yorker and The World Journal,
several of the Golden Venture passengers who had been deported
have since returned to America illegally. Disasters like the Golden
Venture are not a deterrent. Considering the stakes, Incidents like
this are an acceptable risk, and where there are desperate migrants,
(39:25):
there will be snakeheads to guide their passage. It's believed
that Sister Ping's family carried on the business after her imprisonment,
but certainly without her panache. In twenty fourteen, after serving
just fourteen years of her thirty five year sentence, Sister
Ping died of pancreatic cancer. Thousands of mourners attended her
(39:50):
funeral on Canal Street in Manhattan. I'd like to shout
(40:14):
out the excellent sources I've relied on for this episode.
Two articles for The New Yorker by Patrick Radden Keef,
titled The Snakehead and a Path out of Purgatory. The
first gives a fantastic look at Sister Ping's rise to
power and the economic forces that fueled illegal immigration in
the eighties and nineties. The second piece explores the aftermath
(40:37):
of the Golden Venture tragedy and the reverberations it's still
causing an American immigration policy today. If you're interested in
learning more, I recommend checking out Patrick Radden Keef's book,
also called The Snakehead. For an even deeper dive into
Sister Ping's life and crimes. For more information about this
(40:57):
case and others we cover on the show, visit diversion
audio dot com. The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
is a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer,
and I hosted this episode. This episode was written by
Grace Human. Our show is produced by Leo Culp and
(41:20):
edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Executive
produced by Scott Waxman, and one more thing before I Go.
If you haven't already, I'll love you forever if you
get my true crime book, Madam Queen, The Life and
Crimes of Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. Actually, if you
(41:42):
like the story of Sister Payne, you might like Stephanie
Sinclair's even more. There's a link to do it your
favorite retailer in our show's notes
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