The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (64 page)

302
A young FBI agent:
Unless otherwise indicated, details of Special Agent Becky Chan’s experience escorting Sister Ping from Hong Kong to the United States are drawn from an interview with Becky Chan, January 3, 2006.

303
When they arrived at Newark:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

303
Before her capture in 2000:
Ibid.

303
There were five counts:
See United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” aka “Ping Jai,” 94 Crim. 953, superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York, June 6, 2000. Two additional counts that had been in the indictment were dropped because the Hong Kong Department of Justice deemed them “non-extraditable” offenses.

304
“Hostage-taking and alien smuggling”:
Closing arguments of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial.

304
“Cheng Chui Ping had nothing”:
Closing arguments of Larry Hochheiser in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Closing arguments of Larry Hochheiser, Sister Ping trial).

304
“It wasn’t Cheng Chui Ping”:
Opening arguments of Larry Hochheiser in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Opening arguments of Larry Hochheiser, Sister Ping trial).

305
Mukasey had heard cases:
See
Dong v. Slattery, 870 F. Supp. 53 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).

305
“This is a case”:
Opening argument of David Burns in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Opening argument of David Burns, Sister Ping trial).

305
“She said that she had bad feelings”:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

305
Various former underlings:
Testimony of Cho Yee Yeung and Li Xing Hua, Sister Ping trial.

305
Larry Hay, the undercover:
Larry Hay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

305
Kenny Feng, the Taiwanese:
Kenny Feng testimony, Sister Ping trial.

305
A Fujianese woman:
Testimony of Li Hui Mui in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953.

306
When he strode:
Interview with Konrad Motyka, December 15, 2005.

306.
For three days he testified:
Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

307.
Hochheiser hammered at the credibility:
Opening argument of Larry Hochheiser, Sister Ping trial.

307
“Make no mistake”:
Opening argument of David Burns, Sister Ping trial.

307
Prior to Sister Ping’s trial:
See Harder, “Mother of All Snakeheads;” and Chuck Bennett, “Sister Ping Ventures Back Home,”
New York Daily News
, June 30, 2003.

307
After pleading guilty:
Sister Ping returned on July 1: United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, “Queen Snakehead’ Sister Ping Is Extradited from Hong Kong to New York to Face Alien Smuggling and Hostage Taking Charges,” press release, July 1, 2003. The events and dates relating to Yick Tak are drawn from the docket in USA v. Cheng, 1:98 CR 38 DAB, before Judge Deborah Batts in the Southern District of New York.

308
In Bill McMurry’s view:
Interview with Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

308
“Sister Ping sat atop”:
Closing arguments of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial.

308
In his closing arguments:
Closing arguments of Larry Hochheiser, Sister Ping trial.

309
It could not have helped:
Kareem Fahim, “New Jersey Man Shot to Death in a Restaurant in Chinatown,”
New York Times
, June 16, 2005.

309
Hochheiser was especially troubled:
Trial transcript, Sister Ping trial.

309
Copies of the city’s:
Interview with Chan Ching Chuen, president, Fukienese American Association, January 21, 2006.

309
There was a great upswell:
Zhang Huiyu, “Sister Ping: Living Buddha of Shengmei Village,”
World Journal
, May 23, 2005.

309
Ninety percent of the villagers:
Zhang Huiyu, “Sister Ping on Trial, Villagers Voice Support,”
World Journal
, May 22, 2005.

309
“My sister was just thinking”:
Barnes, “Two-Faced Woman.”

309.
Chinatown residents made frequent:
Ibid.

310.
After spending so many years:
Interview with Konrad Motyka, December 15, 2005.

310
“There are people”:
Interview with Konrad Motyka, October 31, 2005.

310
For Justin Yu:
Interview with Justin Yu, now president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, January 4, 2006.

311
Throughout the trial:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

311
The press took little notice:
For a discussion of the legal case and the degree to which the atomized, fluid structure of cross-border criminal organizations like Sister Ping’s present challenges
for federal prosecutors, see Andrew J. Sein, “The Prosecution of Organized Crime Groups: The Sister Ping Case and Its Lessons,”
Trends in Organized Crime
11, no. 2 (2008).

313
Yet in 2004 one of the men:
Interview with Beverly Church, December 11, 2005.

313
“They’re picking them off”:
Ibid.

313
So at the beginning:
See for instance H.R. 975, A Bill for the Relief of Certain Aliens Who Were Aboard the
Golden Venture
, 110th Congress, First Session, February 8, 2007.

313.
“They paid the penalty”:
Caryl Clarke, “Ten Years Later: The Ship That Altered Lives,”
York Daily Record
, February 25, 2007.

314.
“You should see it”:
Interview with Craig Trebilcock, October 5, 2005.

314
In the spring of 2006:
The film is titled
Golden Venture
and features inter views with several of the passengers. Information on the film is available at
www.goldenventuremovie.com
. I attended the event; quotes and descriptions are from my notes.

314
“When we saw”:
Authors notes from the event, April 26, 2006.

314
“We almost died”:
Ibid.

314
He had come from Philadelphia:
Interviews with Sean Chen, February 6, 2008, and June 5, 2008.

315
After perfunctory statements:
All quotes from Judge Mukasey and Sister Ping are drawn from the March 16, 2006, sentencing hearing, Sister Ping trial.

319
“The potential if she had cooperated”:
Interview with Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

319
Prosecutorial calculus:
Closing statement of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial.

319
“I’ll be candid with you”:
Sentencing hearing in United States v. Guo Liang Qi, 93 CR 78, September 29, 2005.

320
“He’s serving pizzas in Idaho”:
Interview with Konrad Motyka, December 15, 2005.

321
Bill McMurry was thrilled:
Interview with Bill McMurry, October 19, 2007.

EPILOGUE

323.
After President George W. Bush:
For biographical background on Gary Locke, see Gary Locke, “The One Hundred Year Journey,” in Don T. Nakanishi and James S. Lai, eds.,
Asian American Politics
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), pp. 359–60. For the 2003 speech, see Carl Hulse and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Democrats Say the Nation Heads in ‘Wrong Direction,’”
New York Times
, January 29, 2003; Chang,
The Chinese in America
, p. 389.

324.
Migration scholars and refugee advocates:
According to figures maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, an estimated 11.8 million “unauthorized immigrants” were living in the United States in January 2007. See Michal Hoffer, Nancy Rytina, and Bryan C. Baker, “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2007,” Office of Immigration Statistics, Department of Homeland Security, September 2008.

324
But the business of human smuggling:
Ginger Thompson and Sandra Ochoa, “By a Back Door to the U.S.: A Migrant’s Grim Sea Voyage,”
New York Times
, June 13, 2004.

327
The “notable cases” section:
Law Offices of Scott B. Tulman & Associates, PLLC (
www.tulmanlaw.com
).

327
Tulman prepared an appeal:
Reply brief for defendant-appellant Cheng Chui Ping, United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, 06-1996-cr.

327
But the court wasted:
United States v. Ping, No. 06-1996-cr, summary
order, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, November 19, 2007.

327.
She had her own explanation:
Confidential interview.

328.
When I met with a police officer:
Interview with Colonel Jaruvat Vasaya of the Royal Thai Police, March 13, 2007.

328
As of 2007, some Chinese estimates:
Blatt, “Recent Trends in the Smuggling of Chinese.”

328
But today the fee:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

328
“The people going away”:
Interview with Lin Li, Changle, China, February 20, 2008.

329
In 2002, for the first time:
Denny Lee, “Years of the Dragon,”
New York Times
, May 11, 2003.

329
“Sister Ping got into”:
Zhang,
Chinese Human Smuggling Organization
, p. 223.

329
I stopped by the church:
Interview with Matthew Ding, November 8, 2005.

329
There are roughly 200 million:
These figures are taken from the International Organization of Migration’s “Global Trends and Estimates,” which are in turn drawn from the United Nations’
Trends in Total Migrant Stock
.

330
And in something of a paradox:
“The smuggler is dependent on the state in a multitude of ways,” the scholar Peter Andreas points out. “The most obvious but essential point is that state-created and enforced laws provide the very opening for (and high profitability of) smuggling in the first place.” Peter Andreas, “Smuggling Wars: Law Enforcement and Law Evasion in a Changing World,”
Transnational Organized Crime
4, no. 2 (Summer 1998).

330
Human smuggling is one:
United States Department of Justice, “Distinctions Between Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking,” unclassified fact sheet, January 2005.

330
Afghans are smuggled:
On the Afghans, there are numerous examples; see, for instance, Sarah Smiles, “Boats May Be Work of Syndicate,”
Age
(Australia), October 8, 2008. On Ecuadorians, see Thompson and Ochoa, “By a Back Door to the U.S.”

331
The convention has an additional:
Adopted by the General Assembly in 2000, the protocol went into force in 2004.

332.
The United States should remain alert:
Interestingly, there is a positive correlation between countries with major corruption problems and countries with high disparities in income. A fascinating IMF working paper explains the correlation by suggesting that corruption causes income inequality. I wonder if it is not sometimes the other way around. See Sanjiv Gupta, Hamid Davoodi, and Rosa Alonso-Terme, “Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?” IMF Working Paper, May 1998.

332
“No agency of the government”:
Joel Brinkley, “At Immigration, Disarray and Defeat,”
New York Times
, September 11, 1994.

332
On June 26, 2008:
United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, “Attorney Working for Immigration Agency Arrested for Taking Bribes from Immigrants Seeking Status in the U.S.,” press release, June 26, 2008.

332.
In 1995 the government re pealed:
David Ngaruri Kenney and Philip G. Schrag,
Asylum Denied: A Refugee’s Struggle for Safety in America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), p. 2.

333.
Through a series:
See, for instance, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, “Backlog Elimination Plan,” report to Congress, June 16, 2004.

333
Like the
Golden Venture
passengers:
Human Rights First, “Background Briefing Note: The Detention of Asylum Seekers in the United States, Arbitrary Under the ICCPR,” January 2007.

333
As a result:
“Detention in America,”
60 Minutes
(CBS), May 11, 2008. 333-34
On any given day:
Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein, “System of Neglect,”
Washington Post
, May 11, 2008.

334
In 2007 the government held:
Nina Bernstein, “Ill and in Pain, Detainees Die in U.S. Hands,”
New York Times
, August 13, 2008.

334
Immigration detention is now:
Nina Bernstein, “New Scrutiny as Immigrants Die in Custody,”
New York Times
, June 26, 2007.

334
In 1999 a Chinese woman:
Ted Gregory, “INS Use of Jails Debated,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 15, 1999.

334
According to a study:
Priest and Goldstein, “System of Neglect.”

334
But the leading cause:
Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein, “Suicides Point to Gaps in Treatment,”
Washington Post
, May 13, 2008.

334
It is an ironic reflection:
Teresa Watanabe, “Report Decries U.S. Treatment of Migrants,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 8, 2008.

334
In 1999 the prison underwent:
Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, “The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the United States Marshals Service Intergovernmental Service Agreements for Detention Services with the County of York, Pennsylvania, York County Prison,” Report No. GR-70-01-005, June 25, 2001.