The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (52 page)

45
The Fujianese city of Changle:
This figure is drawn from a Chinese-language study by Zhu Meirong of the Fujian Provincial Governments Development Research Center, “Analysis of Fujian Provincial New-Migration Issues and the First Inquiry into Relative Policy,”
Population Research
(China) 5, no.
5 (September 2001). The study is cited in Blatt, “Recent Trends in the Smuggling of Chinese.”

46
Drawing on the connections:
Details of Sister Ping’s underground banking business are drawn from multiple interviews with Bill McMurry and Konrad Motyka at the FBI and with Chinatown residents who either patronized or were familiar with the service. In addition, both Weng Yu Hui and Ah Kay furnished information about the dynamics of the business at trial. Sister Ping’s lawyer Larry Hochheiser would eventually claim that the extent of her crimes was running an unlicensed money transfer service, thereby appearing to concede the truth of that particular allegation against her. But for her part, Sister Ping refused, on the advice of her new lawyer, Scott Tulman, to answer any of my questions about her banking operation.

46
Various underground banking systems:
See William L. Cassidy, “Fei-Chien, or Flying Money: A Study of Chinese Underground Banking,” address at the 12th Annual International Asian Organized Crime Conference, June 26, 1990; Jacques Gernet,
A History of Chinese Civilization
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 325.

46
“Sister Ping keeps stores”:
Written declaration of FBI Special Agent Peter Lee in a sealed federal criminal complaint against Cheng Chui Ping and Cheng Yick Tak, Southern District of New York, December 1994.

46
Once Weng Yu Hui:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

47
“Her clients are extremely”:
Sheldon X. Zhang,
Chinese Human Smuggling Organizations: Families, Social Network, and Cultural Imperatives
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), p. 36.

47
Soon the Bank of China:
Interviews with Steven Wong, November 11, 2005; interview with Justin Yu, January 4, 2006.

47
According to the Fujian Statistical Bureau:
Liang, “Demography of Illicit Emigration from China.” It should be noted that overseas investment from other countries, like Taiwan, and an array of foreign direct investment that would not be considered remittances are also reflected in those numbers.

47
But it was rumored:
Interview with Dougie Lee, February 10, 2006.

48
Weng would go in:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

48
They diversified, opening:
Written declaration of Special Agent Peter Lee.

48
In the waterfront neighborhood:
Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry first told me about the poultry business, though they did not know precisely where it was. Several people in Chinatown told me that it was in Red Hook. As it happens, there are several poultry slaughterhouses in Red Hook. One of them occupies a small space on Columbia Street and specializes in live chickens, roosters, ducks, and rabbits. Its name is Yeung Sun—the same name as Sister Ping’s restaurant at 47 East Broadway.

48
They continued to operate:
Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

49
In the early 1980s:
Prepared testimony of Willard H. Myers III, Center for the Study of Asian Organized Crime, hearing on “The Growing Threat of International Organized Crime,” before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, January 25, 1996; “Assault on the Dollar,”
Asia, Inc.
, February 1995; “Asian Organized Crime,” p. 51; interview with James Goldman, May 23, 2007.

49
The law created:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial. (Weng
availed himself of the amnesty, though he had not arrived in the United States until 1984); Willard H. Myers III, “Of Qinqing, Qinshu, Guanxi, and Shetou,” in Smith,
Human Smuggling
.

49
On her visits to Fuzhou:
Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

49
The main thoroughfare in the village:
Pamela Burdman, “Back Home in China, Smugglers Are Revered, Feared,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, November 19, 1993.

49
The Chinese state:
Thunø, “Beyond Chinatown,” p. 13.

49
It was an appellation:
Burdman, “Back Home in China.”

50
When Fujianese villagers:
Kwong,
Forbidden Workers
, p. 96.

50
As the remittance money:
See John Pomfret, “Smuggled Chinese Enrich Homeland, Gangs,”
Washington Post
, January 24, 1999. I have visited these houses; they are extraordinarily ostentatious and gaudy, and they tower over even the tiniest villages outside Fuzhou. See Keefe, “Little America.”

50
In the fall of 1983:
Interview with James Goldman, May 23, 2007. Also see Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

50
Several years later Frankie Wong:
Interview with James Goldman, May 23, 2007; Dennis Hevesi, “Two Are Slain as a Gang Opens Fire in a Chinatown Gambling Parlor,”
New York Times
, November 5, 1987.

51
One day in February 1985:
Unless otherwise noted, material on the Operation Hester investigation is drawn from an interview with Joe Occhipinti, former chief of the Anti-Smuggling Unit at the INS in New York, who ran the operation, August 3, 2007. Also INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.’” The description of the charts is drawn from photographs of the charts shown to me by Joe Occhipinti.

51.
The following month:
INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.”

52.
The family purchased:
Written response from Sister Ping.

52
Given his role as second fiddle:
INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.’”

52
In 1986 he was caught:
Internal INS document, “Operation Swiftwater,” Report of Investigation, BUF 50/34, October 25, 1989.

52
This time he was arrested:
Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

52
To the investigators:
Interview with Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

52
After customs alerted the INS:
Internal INS document, “Case Management Review: ‘Project Hester,’” November 25, 1985.

52.
Occhipinti contacted:
Interview with Joe Occhipinti, August 3, 2007. Also INS, “Alien Smuggling Task Force Proposal.”

53.
Sister Ping’s father:
Ibid.

53
It emerged that in January:
INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.’”

53
From the Hong Kong investigators:
Ibid.

53
Susan, the younger sister:
Ibid.

53
She was married:
Ibid.

53
When Susan wasn’t in Hong Kong:
INS, “Operation Swiftwater.”

53.
The previous spring:
INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.’”

54.
During one ten-month period:
Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

54
“The smuggling of ethnic Chinese”:
INS, “Alien Smuggling Task Force Proposal.”

54
Occhipinti put together:
Interview with Joe Occhipinti, June 7, 2007.

55
He had asked for:
Internal INS Memo, “Project Hester Phase II (NYC 50/18.153); Initiation of Grand Jury Investigation,” August 3, 1988.

55
But INS headquarters:
Internal
INS memo, “Project Hester (NYC 50/18.153); Supervisory Conference with Assigned US Attorney,” by Joseph Occhipinti, August 16, 1988.

55
In 1988 he proposed:
Ibid.

55
As it happened, the INS:
Interview with James Goldman, November 16, 2007. (Goldman was the primary investigator on Operation Hydra.) Also see “Woman Gets a Twelve-Year Term for Promoting Prostitution,”
New York Times
, August 6, 1986.

55
Madame Shih imported:
Hariette Surovell, “Chinatown Cosa Nostra,”
Penthouse
, June 1988.

55
INS investigators believed:
Interview with James Goldman, May 23, 2007.

55
Madam Shih’s son-in-law:
INS, “Progress Reports, Operation Hester.’”

55
Thus, with the inadvertent cooperation:
Interview with James Goldman, May 23, 2007.

55
Whenever people asked:
The encounter between Occhipinti and Sister Ping was recounted to me by Joe Occhipinti, June 7, 2007.

56
It became part of her lore:
Before meeting Occhipinti and hearing the story firsthand, I heard several versions of it from other current and former immigration officers.

CHAPTER 4:
DAI LO
OF THE FUK CHING

This chapter draws on interviews with numerous current and former law enforcement officials, from the FBI, the NYPD, and the Manhattan district attorneys office, in addition to the transcript of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee interview with Benny Ong and the transcripts of testimony by Ah Kay at two different trials.

57.
One autumn day in 1991:
Inter view with Dan Rinzel, formerly of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, November 12, 2007.

57
“My name Benny Ong”:
Quotes from the investigator’s interview with Benny Ong are taken from a transcript of the testimony of Benny Ong in “Asian Organized Crime,” pp. 145–51.

57.
Born the seventh:
Biographical material on Benny Ong is drawn from Michael Daly, “The War for China town,”
New York
, February 14, 1983; Anthony DeStefano, “Federal Investigators Probe Asian Gangs,”
Newsday
, November 18, 1993; Anthony DeStefano, “‘Adviser’ Holds Court, Lies Low,”
Newsday
, February 14, 1993; Peg Tyre, “Final Curtain for Godfather’ of China town?”
Newsday
, July 28, 1994; Rose Kim, “Godfather’ of Chinatown Dies,”
Newsday
, August 7, 1994; Rick Hampson, “Death Comes to The Godfather,’” Associated Press, August 8, 1994; Douglas Martin, “After Benny Ong, Silence in Chinatown,”
New York Times
, August 8, 1994; Molly Gordy, “Chinatown Mourning Godfather,”
Newsday
, August 17, 1994; Molly Gordy and Mae Cheng, “Paying Last Respects,”
Newsday
, Au gust 18, 1994; Eleanor Randolph, “Last Respects for The Godfather,’”
Washington Post
, August 19, 1994; Mae Cheng, “Mourning ‘Uncle 7,’”
Newsday
, August 20, 1994; John Kifner, “Benny Ong: A Farewell to All That,”
New York Times
, August 21, 1994; Molly Gordy, “Hong Kong Connection,”
Newsday
, November 3, 1994.

58.
The word
tong:
Interviews with Ko-lin Chin, November 3, 2005. On tongs, their history, and their role in China town society, see Kwong,
The New Chinatown
, particularly chaps. 5 and 6; Kwong and Miščević,
Chinese America
, pp. 86–87; Ko-lin Chin,
Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise & Ethnicity
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), introduction; Jane H. Lii, “Tongs and Gangs: Shifting the Links,”
New York Times
, August 21, 1994.

59.
In
The Gangs of New York:
Herbert Asbury,
The Gangs of New York
(New York: Thunders Mouth, 1998 [1927]), chap. 14. Also see Eng Ying Gong and Bruce Grant,
Tong War!
(New York: N. L. Brown, 1930).

60.
The Flying Dragons did the dirty work:
Booth,
Dragon Syndicates
, pp. 305–6.

60
But on the occasions:
The Golden Star Tearoom shooting was a famous episode, much written about at the time. See Daly, “The War for Chinatown.” (In insisting that he would never have ordered such a massacre, Ong offered a homespun elaboration: “Shoot one guy, easy, nobody knows. Shoot many people, everybody knows. Trouble.”)

61
High above, on a terrace:
Kifner, “Benny Ong: A Farewell to All That.”

61
“The Chinese community is afraid”:
Testimony of Kenneth Chu, aka Johnny Wong, former member, Ghost Shadows gang and On Leong tong, in “Asian Organized Crime,” p. 35.

61
Tong leaders of Ong’s generation:
T. J. English,
Born to Kill: The Rise and Fall of America’s Bloodiest Asian Gang
(New York: Avon, 1995), pp. 55–58.

62
“There are no norms”:
John Kifner, “Asian Gangs in New York—A Special Report,”
New York Times
, January 6, 1991.

62.
The 1960 census showed:
Richard Bernstein, “Violent Youth Gangs of Chinatown Reflect Tensions of Complex Society,”
New York Times
, December 24, 1982.

63.
“You gotta be strong”:
Joseph O’Brien and Andris Kurins,
Boss of Bosses: The FBI and Paul Castellano
(New York: Dell, 1991), p. 215.

63
A gang of Vietnamese teenagers:
On the BTK gang, see English,
Born to
Kill
.

63
A BTK funeral:
Donatella Lorch, “Mourners Returned Fire, Police Say,”
New York Times
, July 30, 1990.

64
On the Fourth of July:
Jacques Steinberg, “Tourist in Car Killed as She Chances Upon Chinatown Gunfight,”
New York Times
, July 6, 1991.

64
It was a stray bullet:
Metro News Brief, “Queens Man Convicted in Chinatown Killing,”
New York Times
, February 14, 1998.

64
For police and prosecutors:
Interview with Luke Rettler of the Manhattan district attorneys office, December 8, 2005.