The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (55 page)

103
Immigration officials didn’t have:
Gladwell and Stassen-Berger, “U.S. Policy Seen Encouraging Wave of Chinese Immigration.”

103
The INS had historically:
Confidential interview with a former INS official.

Gene McNary, who ran:
Joel Brinkley, “At Immigration, Disarray and Defeat,”
New York Times
, September 11, 1994.

Bill Slattery, the INS’s district director:
Unless otherwise noted, material on Slattery is drawn from an interview with Bill Slattery, July 7, 2008.

104
When he took the job:
Vivienne Walt, “Aliens at the Gate; New York’s INS Director Cracks Down,”
Newsday
, November 29, 1993.

104
“The aliens have taken control”:
Tim Weiner, “Pleas for Asylum Inundate Immigration System,”
New York Times
, April 25, 1993.

104
Slattery thought of the aliens:
George E. Curry, “Masses Find JFK Airport Is Passageway to Illegal Entry,”
Chicago Tribune
, February 23, 1992.

104
“If I have someone from China”:
Mehlman, “The New Jet Set.”

104
Twelve million people:
“Asian Organized Crime,” p. 195.

And by 1992:
Mehlman, “The New Jet Set.”
“Prove to us that they’re Chinese”:
Confidential interview with an immigration official.

105
Each time an arrival:
Mehlman, “The New Jet Set.”

105
The airport had a small:
Ted Conover, “The United States of Asylum,”
New York Times Magazine
, September 19, 1993.

105
“It’s not like they’re trying”:
Bill Slattery, quoted in
CBS News
transcript, “Move to Call for a Moratorium on Immigration in America,” July 4, 1993.

105
Someone could arrive at JFK:
“Asian Organized Crime,” p. 195.

105
The snakeheads knew this:
Mehlman, “The New Jet Set;” Ah Kay testimony, Zhang Zi trial.

106
One Hong Kong triad:
Greg Torode, “Triads Use HK Agency for Illegals,”
South China Morning Post
, March 15,.1993. See also “Asian Organized Crime,” p. 190.

106
One reason for this:
Interview with Neville Cramer, a former INS official, June 1, 2007.

106
In the midnineties, a federal working group:
Presidential Initiative to Deter Alien Smuggling, “Report of the Interagency Working Group,” 1995.

106
But James Woolsey:
Paul J. Smith, “Illegal Chinese Immigrants Everywhere,”
International Herald Tribune
, June 28, 1996. Another article, Jim Mann, Christine Courtney, and Susan Essoyan, “Chinese Refugees Take to High Seas,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 16,.1993, cites “INS and State Department officials” who also estimated the number at 100,000 a year.

106
One senior immigration official:
Gwen Kinkead,
Chinatown: Portrait of a Closed Society
(New York: Perennial, 1993), p. 160.

106
Sources within China’s own Public Security Bureau:
Marlowe Hood, “The Taiwan Connection,”
Los Angeles Times Magazine
, October 9, 1994.

106
The NYPD estimated:
Kwong,
Forbidden Workers
, p. 82.

107
One expert on the snakehead trade:
Willard Myers, “Transnational Ethnic Chinese Organized Crime: A Global Challenge to the Security of the United States, Analysis and Recommendations,” testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, April 24, 1994.

107
That would make it roughly comparable:
Pamela Burdman, “How Gangsters Cash In on Human Smuggling,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, April 28, 1993.

107
Other estimates place:
Dele Olojede, “America at Any Cost,”
Newsday
, July 19, 1998.

107
According to Peter Kwong:
Kwong,
Forbidden Workers
, p. 33.

107
After he was deported:
Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

107
On his journey back to America:
Ah Kay testimony, Zhang Zi trial.

107
Most people in New York’s Chinatown:
Ashley Dunn, “After Crackdown, Smugglers of Chinese Find New Routes,”
New York Times
, November 1, 1994. The year 1991 also tended to be the consensus date that emerged in conversations I had with people over three years of research in Chinatown about the advent of boat smuggling.

107
But an INS Anti-Smuggling Unit memo:
INS, “Alien Smuggling Task Force Proposal.”

108
In some cases:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

108
What is clear:
Mann, Courtney, and Essoyan, “Chinese Refugees Take to High Seas;” Pamela Burden, “Human Smuggling Ships Linked to One Huge Ring,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, December 30, 1993; Hood, “The Taiwan Connection.”

108
Some have connected:
White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials” (Rand Beers and Donsia Strong), June 18, 1993; Seth Faison, “Crackdown Fails to Stem Smuggling of Chinese to U.S.,”
New York Times
, August 23, 1993.

108
The snakeheads called the boats:
Blatt, “Recent Trends in the Smuggling of Chinese.”

109
Thailand is extravagantly corrupt:
Interview with Colonel Jaruvat Vasaya of the Royal Thai Police, March 13,
2007; interview with Colonel Ponsraser Ganjanarintr of the Royal Thai Police, March 13, 2007; interview with Mark Riordan, formerly of the INS, June 7, 2007.

109
By 1992, U.S. authorities:
Interview with Mark Riordan, June 7, 2007.

109
American document experts:
Confidential interview with a former INS investigator.

109
Until that point, Bangkok had been:
See James Dao and Ying Chan, “Thai City Hub on Smuggle Route to U.S.,”
New York Daily News
, September 24, 1990.

109.
But when authorities:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

110.
Between August 1991:
Chin,
Smuggled Chinese
, p. 4.

110
Dating back to 1989:
Interview with Luke Rettler, May 30, 2008.

110
But Ah Kay had watched:
Ah Kay testimony, Zhang Zi trial.

110.
Ah Kay called the process:
Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

111.
Occasionally a passenger would jump:
Testimony of Cho Yee Yeung in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Cho Yee Yeung testimony, Sister Ping trial).

111
By the summer of 1992:
Ibid.

111
Ah Kay was ferociously:
Confidential source.

111
One day in August 1992:
Testimony of Li Xing Hua in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Li Xing Hua testimony, Sister Ping trial).

111
A month after the raft:
Chan and Dao, “Merchants of Misery.”

112
In 1990 a Chinatown journalist:
Ibid.

112
Sister Ping was angered:
Sister Ping sentencing remarks.

112
By 1991 a Senate subcommittee:
“Asian Organized Crime,” p. 189.

112
Shortly after Ah Kay:
The account of Sister Ping’s meeting with Ah Kay is drawn from the testimony at Sister Ping’s trial of Ah Kay, Cho Yee Yeung, and Li Xing Hua.

113
On the night of September 21:
Cho Yee Yeung testimony, Sister Ping trial.

113
The night after the pickup:
Unless otherwise noted, the account of John Marcelinos observation of the New Bedford smuggling operation is drawn from testimony of John Q. Marcelino III in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter John Marcelino testimony, Sister Ping trial).

114
The U-Hauls proceeded:
Li Xing Hua testimony, Sister Ping trial.

114
She sent Yick Tak:
Cho Yee Yeung testimony, Sister Ping trial.

114
For Ah Kay she prepared:
Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

114.
When the FBI:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

115.
She would later claim:
Written response from Sister Ping; Sister Ping sentencing remarks.

115
Prosecutors would later describe:
Closing arguments of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial.

115
Before long she was offering:
Ah Kay testimony, Zhang Zi trial.

116
But it has also been suggested:
Interview with Stephen Wong, November 11, 2005. Also see “The Mother of All Snakeheads,” Asian Pacific News Service, July 10, 2003.

116
During the period when Ah Kay:
Interview with Peter Lee, January 31, 2006; written declaration of Special Agent Peter Lee.

CHAPTER 7: MOMBASA

This chapter draws primarily on a dozen hours of interviews with Sean Chen, conducted during several trips to Philadelphia,
where he lives today. For additional details in the account of the journey through Burma to Thailand, I relied on the recollections of Michael Chen, one of Sean’s fellow passengers aboard the
Golden Venture
, who followed the same busy route from Fujian to Bangkok. During the months that the
Najd II
was stranded in Mombasa, a Kenyan journalist named Matiko Bohoko covered the story for several local papers and boarded the ship. Bohoko still lives and works in Kenya, and in addition to discussing his recollections of the incident with me, he was kind enough to do some additional research and track down some old clippings from the local press. The current and former staff at Mombasa’s Missions to Seamen (which is now called the Mission to Seafarers) also supplied valuable memories and documents.

117
Sean Chen stood:
Unless otherwise noted, all material relating to the experience of Sean Chen in China, Thailand, Kenya, and the United States is based on interviews with Sean Chen, February 6, 2008, and June 5, 2008.

119
This was Burma’s:
Transcript of an interview with Donald Ferrarone, chief, DEA office in Bangkok, 1993–1995, conducted by the PBS television program
Frontline
for an episode called “The Opium Kings” in 1996, available on the
Frontline
Web site (
www.pbs.org/frontline
).

119
“When the DEA”:
“Khun Sa: Ruthless Burmese Warlord Who Dominated the World’s Heroin Trade,” obituary,
Times
(London), November 5, 2007.

119
Sean joined another clandestine:
Some of the details of the general conditions on the crossing into Burma are drawn from an interview with another
Golden Venture
passenger, Michael Chen, December 17, 2005. (Michael Chen’s story is told in greater detail in Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Snakehead: The Criminal Odyssey of Chinatown’s Sister Ping,”
The New Yorker
, April 24, 2006.)

123
Thai police officers demanded:
Information about raids by the police is drawn from the Michael Chen interview. (Michael Chen’s safe house was raided on a number of occasions, and he was thrown into prison.)

124
The ship’s hull was painted:
The physical description of the ship is drawn from the entry on the
Aramoana
(later the
Najd II)
in the New Zealand Maritime Record.

124
But the chief snakehead:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

125
Weng was curious:
Sister Ping sentencing remarks.

125
Then in 1991:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

125
Weng’s new business grew:
Ibid.

125
So unmatched was Sister Ping’s:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005. Sister Ping alluded to this situation herself in her sentencing hearing in 2006, when she claimed that those conducting smuggling operations “in her name” had not in fact been employees or associates of hers at all.

126
Her younger brother:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial; interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

126
Weng would put:
Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial. There is some disagreement about the precise number of passengers Weng had. In his testimony in Sister Ping’s trial, he said about thirty. But according to government documents, the number was closer to forty. (See, for example, the government’s appellate brief in U.S. v. Fei, No. 98-1713, November 4, 1999.)

126
Mr. Charlie found:
The charter
arrangement was dated July 10, 1992. The registered owner of the ship was Najd Trading and Construction, of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. See Aung. K. Mynt & 17 Others v. Owners of M/V Najd II, Admiralty Cause No. 21 of 1992 in the High Court of Kenya at Mombasa, ruling, March 23, 1993.

126
They ran aground:
Internal INS document, “A Chronology of Alien Smuggling by Sea,” June 22, 1994; Peter Woolrich, Michael Chugani, and Matiko Bohoko, “Every Day New Details Are Coming to Light of a Mass Exodus,”
South China Morning Post
, February 14, 1993; Faison,
South of the Clouds
, p. 122.

127
In addition to chartering:
Interview with Donald Monica, formerly of the INS, June 9, 2008.

127
The Indian Ocean:
William Langewiesche,
The Outlaw Sea
(New York: North Point, 2004), p. 62.