Cheng Chui Ping, known as Sister Ping around Chinatown, 56, was charged for smuggling immigrants, hostage taking and money laundering. At the height of her power, Sister Ping owned restaurants, a clothing store and real estate in Chinatown, as well as apartments in Hong Kong and a farm in South Africa. But her main, multimillion-dollar business was an underground banking network that stretched from New York to Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong - and even Communist China.
The collapse of her illegal conglomerate began on June 6, 1993, when the Golden Venture, a tramp steamer that she had helped to finance, ran aground off Queens packed with 289 famished immigrants. Ten of them died trying to swim to shore.
The trial of Ms. Cheng began May 16 in Federal District Court. The prosecutors' case is based on wiretap evidence and testimony from convicted Chinese smugglers and Chinatown gang members who have been cooperating with the government since Ms. Cheng fled the United States in 1994.
She charged up to $40,000 per person for the voyage to New York from Asia in the suffocating hold of a rogue vessel. She fronted small amounts of cash to the immigrants before the trip. Ms. Cheng ordered Chinese gang members to hold the immigrants at gunpoint in warehouses in New York to make sure their relatives paid her full fees. (Source: Julia Preston, The New York Times, May 23, 2005).