Name: The Snakehead
Rating: 4.0625 (8 reviews)
ISBN: 9780385521307

Patrick Radden Keefe

Traces the story of illegal Chinese immigrant Cheng Chui Ping, who built a multimillion-dollar human-smuggling conglomerate with direct links to a violent Chinatown gang, an organization that was exposed by New York's fabled "Jade Squad" and the FBI twelve years before Ping's conviction.

An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

The Snakehead

In this thrilling panorama of real-life events, the bestselling author of Empire of Pain investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York’s Chinatown managed a multi-million dollar business smuggling people. “Reads like a mashup of The Godfather and Chinatown, complete with gun battles, a ruthless kingpin and a mountain of cash. Except that it’s all true.” —Time Keefe reveals the inner workings of Sister Ping’s complex empire and recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way, he paints a stunning portrait of a generation of illegal immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them. Grand in scope yet propulsive in narrative force, The Snakehead is both a kaleidoscopic crime story and a brilliant exploration of the ironies of immigration in America.

Mind blown. Was looking at wikipedia while reading it all the time, it is a documentary while being a novel. So much tension for a known story, amazing writing. Furthermore, gives lots of information of immigration history, and the politics happening around it. Directly hits the heart with how simple life is lost or thrown around. Will read more from the author for sure. 

Eren

Life itself sometimes writes the most unique stories and this retelling, of people from China desperately trying to reach the USA by all means and others taking advantage of that, is one of this.

By telling the story of illegal immigration of Chinese from different perspectives ("snakehead", immigrants, police) Patrick Radden created a captive book.

André 

Life itself sometimes writes the most unique stories and this retelling, of people from China desperately trying to reach the USA by all means and others taking advantage of that, is one of this.

By telling the story of illegal immigration of Chinese from different perspectives ("snakehead", immigrants, police) Patrick Radden created a captive book.

Nadine 

Fascinating look at a time when USA was the promised land and people would do whatever it took to get there. How an innocuous looking grandmotherly figure could be the head of a global people-smuggling empire along with a whole dolloping of world history, insights into immigration, law and humanity.
Well worth a read. And how things have changed in the last 10-15 years!

Traces the story of illegal Chinese immigrant Cheng Chui Ping, who built a human smuggling conglomerate with links to a violent Chinatown gang, an organization that was exposed by New York's "Jade Squad" and the FBI twelve years before Ping's conviction.

The Snakehead An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

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