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The Snakehead

An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

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The Snakehead

Written by: Patrick Radden Keefe
Narrated by: Feodor Chin
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About this listen

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION

‘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

In this thrilling story 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 multimillion-dollar business smuggling people.

In The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the inner workings of Cheng Chui Ping aka 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 undocumented immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.

Grand in scope yet propulsive in narrative force, The Snakehead is both a true crime story and a brilliant exploration of the ironies of immigration in America.

‘A powerful piece of reportage about the violent underworld of New York’s Chinatown’ - The Times

 Emigration & Immigration Freedom & Security Human Rights Organised Crime Politics & Government Public Policy Social Sciences True Crime Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Critic Reviews

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.
Essential reading. . . . A rich, beautifully told story, so suspenseful and with so many unexpected twists that in places it reads like a John le Carré novel.
A powerful piece of reportage about the violent underworld of New York’s Chinatown
A masterwork . . . In this single tale about a global criminal, Keefe finds a story of quintessentially American hope.
Painstakingly reported and vividly told. . . . As immigration reform languishes in Washington . . . everyone involved--from policymakers to activists to the undocumented--would be wise to read The Snakehead.
Published in the UK for the first time, Patrick Radden Keefe’s tireless investigation of human trafficking from China to the US reveals the desperation of the migrants and the woman at the heart of it
A formidably well-researched book that is as much a paean to its author's industriousness as it is a chronicle of crime. (Janet Maslin)
Bracing, vivid . . . Keefe writes gracefully, perceptively, insightfully . . . Without sacrificing one iota of narrative momentum, he untangles a dauntingly complicated human-trafficking operation so a reader can effortlessly follow along.
Thoroughly researched and creatively drawn (some scenes are highly dramatic and vivid) by the New Yorker writer, [The Snakehead] is ultimately about the risks these refugees took to play their part in the enduring, grand narrative theme of the American Dream.
Brilliant . . . Keefe’s mastery of this chapter of our ongoing immigration saga is impressive. He muses thoughtfully about its many conundrums and highlights how our ethos of welcoming the persecuted gets soured by bad policy and the pervasive exploitation of the helpless.
Engrossing. . . . Keefe’s narrative delves deeply into Chinatown and the labyrinthine smuggling routes between China and America, but it’s also a glimpse into our conflicted feelings about illegals and the morass of America’s immigration policy.
A timely, powerful and thoroughly researched book.
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