The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (62 page)

260
The following day:
Ibid.

260
Beverly Church was at the prison:
Interview with Beverly Church, December 11, 2005.

260
Joan Maruskin received a call:
Interview with Joan Maruskin, July 17, 2008.

260
When the news reached Craig:
Interview with Craig Trebilcock, October 5, 2005.

261
On February 26, 1997:
Unless otherwise noted, these details are drawn from a long videotape of the events in question, filmed by Joan Maruskin on February 26, 1997.

261
There had been a run:
Interview with Cindy Lobach, July 22, 2008.

261
Someone had brought:
Ying Chan, “Refugees’ Golden Day,”
New York Daily News
, February 27, 1997.

262
The whole community:
Interview with Margo Einsig, July 22, 2008.

263
A local woman named Ann Wolcott:
Interviews with Ann Wolcott, July 22 and 23, 2008.

263
For many of the most ambitious:
Interview with
Golden Venture
passenger Chen Guilin, November 22, 2005. For a fascinating look at Guilin’s life as a delivery guy in suburban Pennsylvania, see Peter Cohn’s 2006 film,
Golden Venture
.

264
“If I can leave here”:
Ted Anthony, “Chinese Detainees Hounded by Government and Gangs,” Associated Press, December 11, 1994.

264
Toward the end of the 1990s:
The precise origins of the Chinatown buses are somewhat murky, inasmuch as there were no companies operating in 1997 and at least three by the end of 1998, but there is general agreement that Fung Wah was the first company. The founder of Fung Wah, Pei Lin Liang, is not Fujianese; he is a former music teacher who came to America from Guangdong Province in 1988.

265
The Fujianese are great imitators:
For an extraordinary article on the microeconomy that emerged around the intersection in Lower Manhattan where many of the buses take on passengers, see Saki Knafo, “Dreams and Desperation on Forsyth Street,”
New York Times
, June 8, 2008.

265
A price war:
Michael Luo, “In Chinatown, a $10 Trip Means War,”
New York Times
, February 21, 2004.

265
As word spread:
In 1999, during my last year as an undergraduate at Columbia, I was one of those college kids.

265
Some pointed out:
See, for instance, Fiona Ng, “A Crash in Pennsylvania, and a Cloud over Mott Street,”
New York Times
, June 10, 2007; “34 Hurt, Driver Cited for Fung Wah Bus Rollover in Auburn,” Associated Press, September 6, 2006; Casey Ross, “Flames Engulf Fung Wah Bus in Connecticut,”
Boston Herald
, August 17, 2005; Michael Wilson and Al Baker, “Cheap Buses from Chinatown Get Riders, and Concerns,”
New York Times
, February 16, 2003.

265
There were other reasons:
See, for instance, William Rashbaum, “Man Shot Dead in Chinatown Was Involved in Bus Rivalry,”
New York Times
, May 11, 2003; Michael Wilson, “Fatal Stabbing Linked to Chinatown Bus Business,”
New York Times
, November 1, 2003.

265
Eventually mighty Greyhound:
By 2006 Greyhound had cut its prices by more than 50 percent to $15 one way from New York to Boston, which happened to match the Fung Wah price during the same period. Greyhound denied that it was worried about competition from Chinatown buses, though it seems worth noting that in 2003 the bus line also introduced a free round-trip shuttle between Port Authority and Chinatown. See Steve Kurutz, “Urban Tactics: Enter the Dragon Coach,”
New York Times
, January 12, 2003.

266
They ended up:
Bill Cahir, “Congress Leaves Refugees in Limbo,” New-house News Service, November 29, 2002.

266
They went to work:
Michael Chen works in Dublin, Ohio. For Normal, Illinois, see Lara Jakes Jordan, “After Horror and Hardship, Chinese Refugees Still Waiting for Permission to Stay,” Associated Press, February 1, 2003.

266
Michael Chen, one of the most:
Interview with Michael Chen, December 17, 2005; Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Snakehead,”
The New Yorker
, April 24, 2006.

266
Less successful was Dong Xu Zhi:
Interview with Dong Xu Zhi, December 18, 2005.

266.
Yang You Yi, the detainee:
Unless otherwise noted, details regarding Yang You Yi are drawn from an interview with Yang You Yi and David Kline, July 23, 2008.

267
Yang worked sixty hours:
Julia Duin, “Quests for Freedom Yield Only Limbo,”
Washington Times
, February 1, 2000.

268
Clinton had used his power:
Interview with Craig Trebilcock, October 28, 2005.

268
When Yang You Yi’s wife:
Interview with Yang You Yi, July 23, 2008; Caryl Clarke, “Spending Ten Years Apart from Their Family, a Chinese Family Now Adapts to Living in Red Lion,”
York Daily Record
, June 30, 2002.

268
Beverly Church remained close:
Interviews with Beverly Church, December 11, 2005, and June 5, 2007; Caryl Clarke, “No Admittance?”
York Daily Record
, October 3, 1993; Anna Dubrovsky and Barbara Barrett, “The Search for Asylum Endures,”
York Daily Record
, February 13, 1998; Allison Klein, “Recovered Gun Believed Used in Killing,”
Washington Post
, September 22, 2005; Shepherd Pittman, “Mother Mourning Girl’s Slaying May Return to China,”
Washington Times
, October 5, 2005; Allison Klein, “A Gruesome Year Leaves Scores of Sad Mysteries,”
Washington Post
, January 12, 2006.

271
Sean Chen had been luckier:
Unless otherwise indicated, details of Sean Chens release and his experiences after prison are drawn from interviews with Sean Chen on February 6, 2008, and June 5, 2008.

271
He had walked out:
Order from Judge Sylvia H. Rambo in Sing Chou Chung v. Janet Reno, 1:CV-93-1702, June 6, 1995; order of release on conditional bond for Sing Chow Chung, August 25, 1995; Caryl Clarke, “Detainee Argues for Bail,”
York Daily Record
, July 20, 1995.

272
When he wanted:
This is true not just of the Fujianese but of the Chinese in general. See Sowell,
Migrations and Cultures
, p. 229.

CHAPTER 16: SNAKEHEADS INTERNATIONAL

This chapter draws on interviews with current and former immigration officials who worked with Jerry Stuchiner; the testimony at Sister Ping’s trial of Kenny Feng, her Guatemalan associate; an interview with Jerry Stuchiner; and several comprehensive articles about Stuchiner and his investigation of Canales, most notably Larmer and Liu’s
Newsweek
piece and Anthony DeStefano’s “Destination: Queens.”

274
One summer day in 1995:
Details of Jerry Stuchiner’s investigation into Gloria Canales are drawn from Larmer and Liu, “Smuggling People;” and Anthony DeStefano, “Destination: Queens,”
Newsday
, June 2, 1996.

275
He was not happy with the move:
Larmer and Liu, “Smuggling People.”

275
Still, Stuchiner did his best:
Ibid.

275
Just as Stuchiner was arriving:
For a good summary of the scandal, see Geraldo Reyes and Juan O. Tamayo, “Honduras Gave Passports to China Refugees for Cash,” Knight-Ridder, March 17, 1997.

276
In 1995 alone:
William Branigin, “Immigrant Trafficking Dealt Blow; Arrested Costa Rican Allegedly Smuggled Thousands into U.S.,”
Washington Post
, December 26, 1995.

277.
That year a federal working group:
William Branigin, “Report to Clinton Urges Global Attack on Growing Trade in Alien-Smuggling,”
Washington Post
, December 28, 1995.

277
When Stuchiner cracked:
For a useful overview of the Canales case and its significance, see Anthony M. De-Stefano, “Immigrant Smuggling Through Central America and the Caribbean,” in Smith,
Human Smuggling. 277
At that time Honduras:
Branigin, “Immigrant Trafficking Dealt Blow.”

277.
When Canales arrived:
Ibid.

278.
“If this isthmus”:
DeStefano, “Destination: Queens.”

278
“These new international criminals”:
Pamela Burdman, “Inside the Chinese Smuggling Rings,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 23, 1993.

278
By the late nineties:
Pomfret, “Smuggled Chinese Enrich Homeland, Gangs.”

278
Many of these people:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

278.
It was no longer feasible:
Ashley Dunn, “After Crackdown, Smugglers of Chinese Find New Routes,”
New York Times
, November 1, 1994.

279.
Throughout the 1990s:
These routes are included in “Asian Organized Crime,” p. 490.

279
When snakeheads discovered:
Hannah Beech, “Trafficking in Human Dreams,”
Time
, April 20, 2007.

279
After sanctions were imposed:
Misha Glenny,
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
(New York: Knopf, 2008), p. 322.

279
All the snakeheads needed:
Moisés Naím,
Illicit
(New York: Doubleday, 2005), p. 27.

279
A handful of snakeheads:
Prepared remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.S. Border Patrol—Native American Border Security Conference, January 17, 2002; Department of Justice press release, “U.S. Cripples Major International Chinese Alien Smuggling Operation,” December 10, 1998.

280
Snakeheads started sending:
See, for example, Kim Murphy, “Smuggling of Chinese Ends in a Box of Death,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 12, 2000; “L.A. Port Officials Find 32 People from China in Containers,” Associated Press, January 16, 2005.

280
Throughout the late 1990s:
Virginia Kice, a Los Angeles–based spokeswoman for ICE, quoted in Lornet Turnbull, Kristi Heim, Sara Jean Green, and Sanjay Bhatt, “Fifteen Days in a Metal Box, to Be Locked Up,”
Seattle Times
, April 6, 2006.

280
A young Fujianese woman:
Tony Thompson, “Snakehead Empress Who Made Millions Trafficking in Misery,”
Observer
(UK), July 6, 2003; Kim Sengupta, “On the Trail of the Chinese Snakeheads,”
Independent
(UK), May 10, 2004.

280
In 2000 she was responsible:
J.F.O. McAllister, “Snaking Toward Death,”
Time
, July 3, 2000.

280
Big Sister believed Ping was:
Barnes, “Two-Faced Woman.”

280
But as she continued her boat smuggling:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

281
With stretches of coastline:
Ginger Thompson, “Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border,”
New York Times
, June 18, 2006; N. C. Aizenman, “Meeting Danger Well South of the Border,”
Washington Post
, July 8, 2006.

281
Sister Ping was hardly:
Jim Rutenberg and Marc Lacey, “In Guatemala, Bush Takes Heat for Raid in U.S.,”
International Herald Tribune
, March 14, 2007.

281
During the period:
Guillermo Vuletin, “Measuring the Informal Economy in Latin American and the Caribbean,” IMF Working Paper, International Monetary Fund, 2008, p. 27; Friedrich Schneider, “Size and Measurement of the Informal Economy in
110 Countries Around the World,” World Bank, 2002, p. 11.

281
In some ways Sister Ping’s organization:
For more on the emergence of transnational criminal organizations of this sort, see Phil Williams, “Transnational Criminal Organizations and International Security,”
Survival
36, no. 1 (Spring 1994).

281
Just as the state of Delaware:
On the particular history and role of the Taiwanese community in Guatemala, see Willard Myers III, “Transnational Ethnic Chinese Organized Crime: A Global Challenge to the Security of the United States,” testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, April 24, 1994.

281
On top of everything else:
Testimony of Kenny Feng in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial).

281
She had connections:
INS document, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester,’” by Special Agent Edmund Bourke, ASU NY.

281
Sister Ping’s man in Guatemala City:
Closing arguments of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial; Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial; interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2006, and October 19, 2007.

282
Like so many others:
Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial.

282
In 1991 Guatemala’s consul general:
Pamela Burdman, “Web of Corruption Ensnares Officials Around the World,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, April 28, 1993.

282
Occasionally Sister Ping:
Confidential interview with a former INS agent.

282
One morning in May 1998:
Testimony of Octavio Urrutia Vidal, of Zacapa, Guatemala, in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953.

282.
Sister Ping was in China:
Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial; testimony of Special Agent Bill McMurry in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Bill McMurry testimony, Sister Ping trial).

283.
A woman she had smuggled:
Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial; testimony of “Sandy” in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Sandy testimony, Sister Ping trial). Also “Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Hold Chinese National Hostage,” Associated Press, September 19, 2001; John Malcomb, assistant attorney general, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, “Alien Smuggling/Human Trafficking: Sending a Meaningful Message of Deterrence,” testimony before the Judiciary Commit tee of the United States Senate, July 25, 2003.