Notorious smuggler has Belize passport
She’s called the “mother of all snakeheads”, a wholesale smuggler of illegal Chinese immigrants into the United States and the target of an intense law enforcement investigation spanning the globe for more than two decades. And when she was finally arrested, guess what she had in her pocket? A Belize passport. That’s right, when this woman, fifty-six year old Cheng Chui Ping, also known as ?Big Sister? Ping, was finally caught in a sting operation at Hong Kong airport in April 2000, she had three passports in her possession: one from China, another from the United States, and one from Belize. Following her arrest, Cheng fought unsuccessfully against extradition to the U.S. and her trial in the U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan, began today. She faces charges of alien smuggling, kidnapping, hostage taking, money laundering, conspiracy, and extortion. According to international news reports and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cheng’s career began around 1984 when it is believed she started smuggling thousands of Chinese migrants into the United States, packed like sardines aboard her cargo ships and enduring rape, starvation, and even torture. Cheng was arrested in the U.S. in 1993 after one of her ships, the Golden Venture, ran aground off New York City. In the dark, the three hundred passengers jumped overboard in desperation and ten people died from hypothermia in the icy waters. Cheng was indicted in that case but ran home, eluding authorities until she was nabbed while dropping her son off at the airport in Hong Kong. This afternoon, after being informed by News Five that “Big Sister” Ping is holding documents of Belizean nationality, Assistant Director of Immigration in Belize, Gareth Murillo, told us a search for Cheng’s records is underway and contact will be made with their international counterparts for more information on the case. It is not known whether Cheng obtained her passport through the various legal economic citizenship programmes implemented since the mid eighties or was one of the hundreds or perhaps thousands of foreigners who bought their citizenship under the table through unscrupulous “agents” with the blessing of corrupt officials.
