THE MOTHER OF ALL SNAKEHEADS (A Criminal)

Cheng Chui Ping was one of the most powerful underworld figures in New York. Known as “the Mother of all Snakeheads”—meaning she was top dog in the human smuggling trade—to her friends in Chinatown she was “Sister Ping.” Cheng was an illegal immigrant herself. Born in 1949 in the poor farming village of Shengmei in Fujian province, she left her husband and family behind and set out for the West, traveling via Hong Kong and Canada before ending up in New York in 1981. She opened a grocery store and started other ventures that became fronts for her people trafficking business. For more than a decade, Cheng smuggled as many as 3,000 illegal immigrants from her native China into the United States—charging upwards of $40,000 per person. To ensure her clients paid their smuggling fees, Sister Ping hired members of the FukChing, Chinatown’s most feared gang, to transport and guard them in the United States. In addition to running her own operation, Sister Ping helped other smugglers by financing large vessels designed for human cargo. She also ran a money transmitting business out of her Chinatown variety store. She used this business to collect smuggling fees from family members of her own “customers,” and also collected ransom money on behalf of other alien smugglers. Conditions aboard the smuggling vessels were often inhumane. The voyages were dangerous, and on at least one occasion a boat capsized while offloading people to a larger vessel and fourteen of her “customers” drowned. The Golden Venture, a smuggling ship Sister Ping helped finance for others, was intentionally grounded off the coast of Rockaway, Queens, in early June 1993 when the offloading vessel failed to meet it in the open sea. Many of the passengers could not swim and ten drowned. Cheng Chui Ping was indicted in 1994 when members of the Fuk Ching gang cooperated with federal agents. After her indictment she continued to run a smuggling operation. In April 2000, Hong Kong police arrested her at the airport. Cheng fought extradition but was eventually delivered to the United States in July 2003. She was convicted in New York less than two years later on multiple counts, including money laundering, conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, and other smuggling related offenses, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. The activities of Sister Ping illustrate how the law must evolve to confront newly emerging social problems such as illegal immigration. Other areas include cyber crime, drug importation, and terrorism. Unfortunately, the law is sometimes slow to change, and change comes only after conditions have reached a crisis. How might laws be changed to reduce illegal immigration? Should people caught entering the country illegally be charged with a felony and imprisoned?

Sources: FBI News release, “Sister Ping Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison for Alien Smuggling, Hostage Taking, Money Laundering and Ransom Proceeds Conspiracy,” 16 March 2006