Two-Faced Woman

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Even Steven Wong, the anti-snakeheads activist who has worked with the Coast Guard interviewing survivors of smuggling trips, says Ping was never like the other snakeheads. "I have no doubt she is a good person," he says. "The Fujianese don't see human smuggling as a crime. They see it as a necessary service. When the gangs took over, Sister Ping argued that those who were coming had paid money and should be treated fairly, as clients, not prisoners." He says he once interviewed her and she claimed she only helped her relatives come to the U.S. "I have heard a lot of bad things about snakeheads but never anything bad about Sister Ping," he says. "People love her because she helps reunite families. Love is bigger than the law. You can't expect fathers not to see their children. In America the law comes first. To Chinese, families are more important," he explained. And money is no object if reunion is the result. "If someone died on the journey," says Wong, "she was famous for making a payment to the family and promising free passage for the next son. In China she was like a goddess. A snakehead with a heart."

Police say she paid the gangs to do her dirty work, and her indictment lists several instances of calls from her demanding ransom and the payment of ransom money for the release of immigrants who were being held until families or relatives paid their smuggling fee. Wong, however, believes her participation in gangs was coerced. He says Ah Kay at one point sent goons who threatened to destroy her restaurant if she didn't knuckle under to his gang. Ah Kay, who pleaded guilty to alien smuggling several years ago, is expected to testify against her. Her attorney Joel Cohen says that "all the government's witnesses are gangsters, thugs and criminals. They have serious credibility problems, and I look forward to cross-examining them." Chinese-language papers in New York say that when she lived in the city, her store was robbed on several occasions by gangs. Philip Lam, a real estate agent who once rented an office from Sister Ping, said he came to her one day to complain that gangs wanted protection money from him. "I have to pay too," she told him. When she returns for trial in August, the price may be higher than she ever expected.

--With reporting by Isabella Ng and Wendy Kan/Hong Kong