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Sister Ping
Cheng Chui Ping (traditional Chinese: 鄭翠萍; simplified Chinese: 郑翠萍; January 9, 1949 – April 24, 2014), also known as Sister Ping (Chinese: 萍姐), was a Chinese woman who ran a human smuggling operation bringing people from China into the United States between 1984 and 2000. Operating from Chinatown, Manhattan, Ping oversaw a snakehead smuggling ring which brought as many as 3,000 Chinese into the United States, earning her more than $40 million. The United States Department of Justice called Ping "one of the first, and ultimately most successful, alien smugglers of all time."
Born and raised in Fujian province, Ping moved to Hong Kong in 1974, and then New York City in 1981. She was arrested in Hong Kong in 2000 and extradited to the United States in 2003. In 2006, she was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison, and remained there until her death.
Ping was born on January 9, 1949, in Shengmei, Mawei, Fuzhou, a poor farming village in northern Fujian, China. She was one of five children born to her father, Cheng Chai Leung, who was from Shengmei, and her mother, who was from a neighboring village. Ping was 10 months old when the People's Republic of China was established. Growing up, she attended the village elementary school and worked on the family farm, helping raise pigs and rabbits, chopping wood, and tending a vegetable garden. When she was twelve, she survived the capsizing of a rowboat in which she had been traveling to another village to cut wood for kindling. She recalled of the incident that all of the people in the boat who had been rowing and had been holding an oar when the boat turned over managed to survive, while "the two people who were lazy and sat back while others worked ended up dead. This taught me to work hard." During the Cultural Revolution, she became a leader of the Red Guard in her village.
When she was 15, her father left the family and traveled to the United States as a merchant marine crewman. He stayed in the U.S. for 13 years, working as a dish-washer and sending money home to the family every few months. He was apprehended by U.S. immigration authorities and deported back to China in 1977. When he returned to China, Ping's father entered into the people smuggling business.
Sister Ping married Cheung Yick, a man from a neighboring village, in 1969. They had a daughter, Cheung Hui, in 1973; Ping later had three sons. The family moved to Hong Kong in 1974, where Ping became a successful businesswoman and opened a factory in Shenzhen, China. In June 1981, with the help of an elderly couple, Ping successfully applied to be a nanny in New York. The family passed through Canada, and on 17 November 1981, settled in Chinatown, Manhattan, in the United States. They opened a shop, the Tak Shun Variety Store, which catered to homesick Fuzhounese immigrants. During her time in New York, Ping lived at 14 Monroe Street, Knickerbocker Village, a modest lower middle class development.
Ping began her smuggling career in the early 1980s as a one-woman operation, smuggling handfuls of fellow villagers from China into the United States a few at a time by commercial airline using forged identification documents. She charged $35,000 or more to transport interested immigrants into the United States.
In the spring of 1989, evidence against Ping was gathered in a sting by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Toronto International Airport. Several months later, Ping was arrested and pleaded guilty to illegal human smuggling. She was sentenced to six months in prison in Butler County, Pennsylvania. As she spoke little English, she was isolated from other prisoners and readily agreed to provide a Chinese-speaking FBI agent with information on Chinatown's underworld, she received a reduced sentence and served four months.
Business picked up after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when the U.S. government offered Chinese students present in the United States at the time the opportunity to stay. Thousands flooded into the country from abroad using false papers to establish a claim to residency under the new rule.
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Sister Ping
Cheng Chui Ping (traditional Chinese: 鄭翠萍; simplified Chinese: 郑翠萍; January 9, 1949 – April 24, 2014), also known as Sister Ping (Chinese: 萍姐), was a Chinese woman who ran a human smuggling operation bringing people from China into the United States between 1984 and 2000. Operating from Chinatown, Manhattan, Ping oversaw a snakehead smuggling ring which brought as many as 3,000 Chinese into the United States, earning her more than $40 million. The United States Department of Justice called Ping "one of the first, and ultimately most successful, alien smugglers of all time."
Born and raised in Fujian province, Ping moved to Hong Kong in 1974, and then New York City in 1981. She was arrested in Hong Kong in 2000 and extradited to the United States in 2003. In 2006, she was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison, and remained there until her death.
Ping was born on January 9, 1949, in Shengmei, Mawei, Fuzhou, a poor farming village in northern Fujian, China. She was one of five children born to her father, Cheng Chai Leung, who was from Shengmei, and her mother, who was from a neighboring village. Ping was 10 months old when the People's Republic of China was established. Growing up, she attended the village elementary school and worked on the family farm, helping raise pigs and rabbits, chopping wood, and tending a vegetable garden. When she was twelve, she survived the capsizing of a rowboat in which she had been traveling to another village to cut wood for kindling. She recalled of the incident that all of the people in the boat who had been rowing and had been holding an oar when the boat turned over managed to survive, while "the two people who were lazy and sat back while others worked ended up dead. This taught me to work hard." During the Cultural Revolution, she became a leader of the Red Guard in her village.
When she was 15, her father left the family and traveled to the United States as a merchant marine crewman. He stayed in the U.S. for 13 years, working as a dish-washer and sending money home to the family every few months. He was apprehended by U.S. immigration authorities and deported back to China in 1977. When he returned to China, Ping's father entered into the people smuggling business.
Sister Ping married Cheung Yick, a man from a neighboring village, in 1969. They had a daughter, Cheung Hui, in 1973; Ping later had three sons. The family moved to Hong Kong in 1974, where Ping became a successful businesswoman and opened a factory in Shenzhen, China. In June 1981, with the help of an elderly couple, Ping successfully applied to be a nanny in New York. The family passed through Canada, and on 17 November 1981, settled in Chinatown, Manhattan, in the United States. They opened a shop, the Tak Shun Variety Store, which catered to homesick Fuzhounese immigrants. During her time in New York, Ping lived at 14 Monroe Street, Knickerbocker Village, a modest lower middle class development.
Ping began her smuggling career in the early 1980s as a one-woman operation, smuggling handfuls of fellow villagers from China into the United States a few at a time by commercial airline using forged identification documents. She charged $35,000 or more to transport interested immigrants into the United States.
In the spring of 1989, evidence against Ping was gathered in a sting by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Toronto International Airport. Several months later, Ping was arrested and pleaded guilty to illegal human smuggling. She was sentenced to six months in prison in Butler County, Pennsylvania. As she spoke little English, she was isolated from other prisoners and readily agreed to provide a Chinese-speaking FBI agent with information on Chinatown's underworld, she received a reduced sentence and served four months.
Business picked up after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when the U.S. government offered Chinese students present in the United States at the time the opportunity to stay. Thousands flooded into the country from abroad using false papers to establish a claim to residency under the new rule.
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