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With her final attempt to avoid extradition ending in failure,  Cheng Chui-ping will be surrendered to US marshals in days

When the freighter Golden Venture hit a sandbar off the shores of New York City on June 6, 1993, the illegal cargo of nearly 300 Chinese stowaways immediately began spilling out of the hold into the icy surf.

It was early morning; the waters were turbulent; the night so clear the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of America and freedom, could be seen in the distance.

Helicopters flew around the ship, beaming spotlights on the vessel trying to convince the immigrants still on board not to jump.

On the beach, other rescue crews began plucking people out of the two-metre waves.

Instead of slipping unnoticed into the streets of New York's Chinatown, the refugees, mostly young men, suddenly became the focus of a spectacular drama.

The scenes of hundreds of immigrants jumping ship - 10 of them perishing in the surf, the rest huddling in blankets on the beach - would become an iconic image and helped fuel the passage of a US crackdown on people smuggling and tougher immigration laws.

And it would spark a six-year manhunt for the alleged mastermind of the tragedy, Hong Kong woman Cheng Chui-ping, 53, dubbed by FBI sources as the 'Mother of All Snakeheads'. She is said to be responsible for illegally smuggling tens of thousands of people from China into New York.

Cheng is today facing extradition back to the United States after her capture and, subsequently, the longest extradition wrangle to be heard in Hong Kong courts since the handover. She yesterday exhausted her final avenue of appeal against extradition.

She is due to be surrendered to US marshals for escort back to New York within days where she will face trial in a federal court on charges including people smuggling, hostage-taking, illegal money-transfers and conspiracy.

Cheng, also known as Big Sister Ping - a term of endearment among those thankful for her role in helping them to the US - was arrested on April 17, 2000 at Chek Lap Kok airport.

Interpol agents had begun checking passenger lists on flights between Hong Kong and New York after she eluded arrest. But in the end it was not her name but that of her son that would prove to be her downfall.

With 40 agents staked out in the airport on the morning of her son's flight, Cheng was spotted and arrested. At the time of her arrest she was found to be carrying three false passports, for Hong Kong, the US and the state of Belize.

Criminologist Chu Yiu-kong, who is also an assistant professor in the University of Hong Kong's department of sociology,  said although Cheng had a reputation for being a 'big fish', doubts existed over whether she was a key player.

'There could be other syndicates, who are running even bigger businesses, but she is a woman and, because of that, the media is very interested in her,' he said.

Cheng may have also cemented her reputation by becoming involved in the human smuggling business at its infancy, he said.

Almost single-handedly, according to police, she put the pieces of her alleged $40 million global smuggling network together. She first entered America illegally, leaving her poor farming village of Shengmei in China's coastal Fujian province, before making her way to Hong Kong and then to the United States.

She later returned to China and, acting as a guide to groups using Mexico, Belize and other Central American states as staging points, she would pay off corrupt officials to gain access to the US.

When Cheng entered the smuggling trade in the 1980s, the cost of passage to America was about US$18,000. Today, it is closer to $60,000 per person, regardless of whether illegal immigrants are smuggled by air, land or sea.

Dr Chu said Cheng was well-known in her home province, where the size of her three-storey home - complete with pagoda - dwarfed others in the mainly mud-hut farming village.

'The people notice that she is running some sort of human smuggling business,' he said. 'It is trust and not necessarily violence that is important [in gaining passage].

'How to arrange transportation and visas are also important, but the starting point is that people have to trust you because if they do, then they can take the risk and hand over the money.'



The end of the road for 'Big Sister' Ping: lynchpin of a global people-smuggling ring