33 Facts About Sister Ping

Cheng Chui Ping, known as Sister Ping, was a Chinese woman who ran a human smuggling operation bringing people from China into the United States from 1984 to 2000.

Sister Ping was arrested in Hong Kong in 2000 and extradited to the United States in 2003.

Sister Ping was born on January 9,1949, in Shengmei, Mawei, Fuzhou, a poor farming village in northern Fujian, China.

Sister Ping 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.

Sister Ping was 10 months old when the People's Republic of China was established.

Sister Ping stayed in the US for thirteen years, working as a dish-washer and sending money home to the family every few months.

Sister Ping was apprehended by US immigration authorities and deported back to China in 1977.

When he returned to China, Sister Ping's father entered into the people smuggling business.

Sister Ping married Cheung Yick, a man from a neighboring village, in 1969.

The family moved to Hong Kong in 1974, where Sister Ping became a successful businesswoman and opened a factory in Shenzhen, China.

In June 1981, with the help of an elderly couple, Sister Ping successfully applied to be a nanny in New York.

Sister 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.

Sister Ping charged $35,000 or more to transport interested immigrants into the United States.

Several months later, Sister Ping was arrested and pleaded guilty to illegal human smuggling.

Sister Ping was sentenced to six months in prison in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

In December 1994, an indictment was brought before a Manhattan federal court, stating that Sister Ping had smuggled around 3,000 Fujianese to the United States since 1984 with the help of the American-Chinese gang Fuk Ching.

In 1998, one of the smaller boats Sister Ping used for offloading customers from a larger vessel capsized off the coast of Guatemala, drowning fourteen.

Sister Ping hired scores of people in several different countries to move her human cargo for her, hold them hostage until their smuggling fees were paid, and collect those fees from them.

Sometimes her customers were lucky and arrived safely in the United States where they paid the exorbitant fees Sister Ping charged, and were released.

The presence of these gang members guaranteed that Sister Ping got paid the $25,000 to $45,000 fee she demanded for the trip.

Sister Ping ran a money transmitting business out of her Chinatown variety store.

Almost all of the immigrants whom Sister Ping harbored came from Fujian province.

Sister Ping was renowned as the most notorious snakehead, operating the largest, most sophisticated operation of its kind, which became international in scale.

In 1994, Sister Ping was invited to Beijing, China along with other overseas notables of Fujianese descent to celebrate an anniversary celebration of the Communist Party.

Sister Ping was arrested when she arrived but according to police and friends, she paid bribes to escape custody.

Later in December 1994, Sister Ping learned of the US indictment and she fled, returning to China where she continued her business.

At the time Sister Ping was carrying three passports, including a fake Belize one with her photo but in the name of Lilly Zheng.

Sister Ping fought extradition but was eventually sent back to New York in July 2003 and held at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Sister Ping served part of her sentence in Federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

Sister Ping's health had deteriorated in prison, with high cholesterol and blood lipids; she lost 17 pounds in the last two years of her life.

Aged 65, Sister Ping died quietly at noon on April 24,2014, surrounded by her family at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Texas.

Sister Ping's funeral took place on May 23,2014, at the Boe Fook Funeral Home on Canal Street in Manhattan with thousands of mourners.

Sister Ping's body was laid to rest at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.