Subtitled "An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream", Patrick Radden Keefe's research and resulting expose/novel is indeed a revealing, sometimes revolting, and completely revelatory look at the mechanics of human smuggling.
The tale centers around a middle-aged noodle shop proprietor (in fact a grand-mother) known as Sister Ping who starts out "helping" and ends up creating and leading (i.e., as the "snakehead") a world-wide criminal organization focused on transporting willing Fujianese (from Fujian province in China) illegally into the United States, making herself fabulously wealthy (like in the $40mm range) in the process. It is also a tale of how economic conditions (poverty in Fujian province, opportunity in the United States) drive desire and the flow of human capital and how law enforcement (and in many cases, the laws themselves) seem to be always one step behind - at least a day late and a dollar short.
Keefe does a very good job tracing the connections, pathways, and ruses used to get thousands of people from China to the United States via Hong Kong, Burma, Thailand, Kenya, South America and Mexico using planes, trains, boats and automobiles. Note here that none of these illegal immigrants are being forced to come to the US - quite the opposite - they pay a lot of money to take the risky journey. Keefe also humanizes the transported - showing how in many cases they come to establish healthy, happy, and productive lives once they reach our shores.
Sister Ping's empire starts in the 1980's as a wave of immigrants from Fujian province start flowing to the US given economic conditions. Sister Ping builds an organization to meet the demand and is regarded as a hero back home. In the US, many of the illegal arrivals have to spend many of their first years here living in the background, in the shadows and controlled by Chinese gangs wherever they happen to settle. Things begin to unravel in 1993 when the Golden Venture, an almost un-seaworthy ship rented for the purpose of bringing some 300 illegals into the US, founders off the shore of Long Island (in Queens). As the police and others arrive to find hundreds of non-English speaking Chinese swimming to shore (and more trapped on a sinking ship), the chase begins.
It takes the FBI some 10 years to figure all this out, but in the end Sister Ping's gang enforcers have turned on each other in fits of murderous violence and in revenge turn each other in to the cops, her husband is suspected of ratting her out to save himself, and Sister Ping is finally identified, arrested, tried, and sentenced to many years in jail.
Keefe makes this a much of an adventure/mystery as he can, but the fascinating part is really in the details of how Sister Ping put this all together - how the system worked, and how everyone involved contributed to ferry thousands of illegals to our shores. The other thing Keefe does with great skill is to show how - no matter how good the intentions, an enterprise with criminal activity at its core necessarily becomes dangerous and viscious. As the criminality climbs, the quality of resources available as labor devolves. Soon the lower levels of the organization begin to try to overly enrich themselves and turn into into those for whom criminality becomes an objective in itself - with all of its attendant violence and chaos.
Interesting reading, fascinating reality, and not a bad set of things to know about how the world works. Give "The Snakehead" a try.
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