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An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream
Doubleday
August 2009
On Sale: July 21, 2009
432 pages
ISBN: 0385521308
EAN: 9780385521307
Hardcover
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A mesmerizing narrative about the rise and fall of an
unlikely international crime boss. In the 1980s, a wave of Chinese from Fujian province began
arriving in America. Like other immigrant groups before
them, they showed up with little money but with an intense
work ethic and an unshakeable belief in the promise of the
United States. Many of them lived in a world outside the
law, working in a shadow economy overseen by the ruthless
gangs that ruled the narrow streets of New York’s Chinatown. The figure who came to dominate this Chinese underworld was
a middle-aged grandmother known as Sister Ping. Her path to
the American dream began with an unusual business run out
of a tiny noodle store on Hester Street. From her perch
above the shop, Sister Ping ran a full-service underground
bank for illegal Chinese immigrants. But her real business—
a business that earned an estimated $40 million—was
smuggling people. As a “snakehead,” she built a complex—and often vicious—
global conglomerate, relying heavily on familial ties, and
employing one of Chinatown's most violent gangs to protect
her power and profits. Like an underworld CEO, Sister Ping
created an intricate smuggling network that stretched from
Fujian Province to Hong Kong to Burma to Thailand to Kenya
to Guatemala to Mexico. Her ingenuity and drive were awe-
inspiring both to the Chinatown community—where she was
revered as a homegrown Don Corleone—and to the law
enforcement officials who could never quite catch her. Indeed, Sister Ping’s empire only came to light in 1993
when the Golden Venture, a ship loaded with 300
undocumented immigrants, ran aground off a Queens beach. It
took New York’s fabled “Jade Squad” and the FBI nearly ten
years to untangle the criminal network and hone in on its
unusual mastermind. The Snakehead is a panoramic tale of international intrigue
and a dramatic portrait of the underground economy in which
America’s twelve million illegal immigrants live. Based on
hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe’s sweeping
narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of
the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the
immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her,
and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death
and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize
their own version of the American dream. The Snakehead
offers an intimate tour of life on the mean streets of
Chinatown, a vivid blueprint of organized crime in an age
of globalization and a masterful exploration of the ways in
which illegal immigration affects us all.
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