Introducing: The Chinatown Sting

Here’s a preview of a podcast we think you'll enjoy. From our friends at Pushkin Industries, this is The Chinatown Sting. In the late 1980s, a group of women connected through the mahjong parlors in Manhattan’s Chinatown were caught in a massive undercover drug bust. But this bust was just the beginning of an even bigger case. Host Lidia Jean Kott and co-reporter Shuyu Wang interview sources who’ve never spoken on record before, including witnesses, defendants, and federal prosecutors, to reconstruct a case that still has repercussions today. Listen to The Chinatown Sting on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get podcasts and binge the entire season, ad-free, with a Pushkin+ subscription—sign up on The Chinatown Sting Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everyone, I'm little aagen Caught. I'm dropping into your
feed today to bring you a preview of my new podcast,
The Chinatown Sting. It's about a woman living in Manhattan's
Chinatown in the nineteen eighties. After she agrees to receive
a package in the mail for her best friend, she
finds herself caught in a criminal case. It's led by

(00:21):
a prosecutor determined to bring down one of Chinatown's most
notorious gangsters. No matter the cost, let's get into it.
In New York City in nineteen eighty eight, federal authorities
laid a trap. They'd gotten a tip that a vast
amount of heroin was being mailed to the city inside

(00:43):
boxes filled with tea. All you guys do is we
see the package, don't have to open it, just accept it,
and that's it.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
It was a slow beep. You're listening in and you
hear the beat, beat beep, and then when a rapid
beap goes betpeppe beep, that means it's been open.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
This sting was huge.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
We probably had about thirty agents. We had undercover postal
agents in uniform attempt to deliver the package at each location.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
That day. The FEDS caught low level drug courriers, mostly
women who played Majong together in Chinatown. I would play
mj with them, Mahjohan and I beat them.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Read her rights, you know in Cantonese, Amandarin. I forgot
exactly which one it was. She was very upset, crying.
It took my daughter's picture off the refrigerator.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
They go, is this your daughter?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I said yes, They go, oh, you may not see
her for like twenty five years. My name is Liddia
jen Kopp. For the last few years, I've been trying
to unravel what happened to a group of moms who
played majong in Chinatown, how they got pulled into a
criminal underworld. To escape, they were forced to play the

(02:02):
highest takes game of their lives.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I couldn't trust her. I was not going to put
her on the stand.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
That was the moment that she realized that she was
not really being paranoid and everything she did has a consequence.
Five sects, white white people, you know, pushed me in
the car.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
What the hell not to they? With the mafia, I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Know, they can get to any resident in Chinatown. So
that's why the fear is there. Because there's no place
for the residents to go.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Once I saw then I tried to take his hand,
and I saw the flash of light, and that was it.
This is the Chinatown Sting.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
When you place money, don't your heartbeat, that's where it goes.
That's adrenaline rush. That's the worst you want.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Subscribe to push Complast to hear the entire season of
The Chinatown Staning free starting September sixteenth. Subscribers also get
bonus episodes, full audiobooks, an early ad free listening from
your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin Plus on
the Tinytown's day Show page on Apple. Podcasts are at

(03:15):
pushkin dot fm, slash plus