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Re: Snakehead TRIAD Gangs Behind 39 Bodies Found Inside Lorry in UK
Horrifying Rise of Mother of all Snakeheads, Sister Ping, Started the Triad Gang Hunted for Deaths of 39 Migrants
Chinese Ruthless Triad Smuggling Gangs are thought to be behind the tragic deaths of 39 migrants found in a lorry at Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex
Daily Mirror UK, 25 OCT 2019.
Sister Ping was known as the 'mother of the snakeheads' died in prison (Image: FBI)
They had fled their home country in the hope of a better life in the UK.
But the dreams of 31 men and eight women ended in tragedy when their bodies were found in the back of a frozen lorry in Essex.
Lorry driver Mo Robinson is being questioned by police after the bodies were found in the truck he was driving.
They will have died in agony after making the arduous 5,000 mile journey from their homeland in a desperate bid to escape their poverty-stricken lives.
It is now feared they came to Britain with help from the Snakeheads, notorious people-smugglers with links to *ruthless Triad gangsters in China.
A murder probe was launched after the bodies were found at 1.40am on Wednesday
The gangs are said to tout the streets for victims, enticing them with the promise of a better life before charging thousands of pounds to take treacherous trips to the West in a “fly-drive” service costing £30,000.
One of the leaders of this terrifying gang was Jing Ping Chen, known as Sister Ping.
She was known as one of the most fearsome gang leaders across Europe and earned to nickname of 'mother of all snakeheads'.
Sister Ping made millions by transporting desperate people in grim conditions to the UK.
The people who make the decision to travel are usually flown from the Fujian region of China to Europe, all expenses paid, then placed in accommodation.
They are then placed in goods lorries and driven in darkness, without food, ventilation, water or toilet facilities.
Chillingly, a source close to the gangs has said the gang believed to be behind the journey of death will feel no shame about the deaths of 39 people.
However, they will be furious they have lost money because none of those transported arrived alive.
The source, who cannot be identified for her own safety, said: "This is not a crime in Chinese culture, this is an opportunity.
"It is an agreement between the Snakeheads and their customers. They are willing, they feel no shame in breaking the law.
“There is a pride that they get out of Fujian and have a chance of a good life with good money in places like Northern Ireland, England, Scotland where there are good benefits.
"Yes the journey is difficult, it is uncomfortable and it is frightening, but the gamble is normally worth it.
"The chances of a good life is worth the risk. In this case it didn’t work. Something went wrong but the Snakeheads will just go again."
While China's economy is booming as many as 30million people still live in abject poverty.And the snakehead gangs take full advantage of those who crave a better life.
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been smuggled out of China.
A spokesman for the National Criminal Intelligence Service told:
"The top snakeheads control the facilitation process from end to end.
"They have contacts in China, the UK and at every stop along the route."
Despite the terrifying conditions the migrants have to face to get to the UK, it is a price many are willing to pay.
The source close to the gang said: "These customers get paid as little as £200 a month in China and live in horrible conditions.
Security guards have explained how the lorry may have slipped through the port's security checks (Image: Humphrey Nemar)
"In the UK, they can get £2,000 a month in a job with no responsibilities, get benefits, get married and live a decent life.
“These people who died in this container had hopes of a future in a good country. Another group will be waiting for their chance to get on a lorry now somewhere in Europe.
“This will not put them off. The plan normally works. The Snakeheads have contacts everywhere.
"They are *practical people, not emotional. They have lost £1.2million in *earnings in this. So they will go again.”
Before this tragedy, the snakeheads gang was also linked to the deaths of 58 Chines people whose bodies were found in an airtight truck at Dover in 2000.
Sister Ping's gang was believed to the thugs behind the tragedy.
Born into poverty in a poor farming village in her native China in 1949, Ping was still a baby when the People's Republic was created.
When she was 15, Ping's father went to work in America as a merchant marine crewman, where he remained for 13 years, sending money home to his family in China.
He was deported after working a series of jobs as a dish washer and when he returned home, he started a people smuggling business, something his daughter would pick up just a few years later.
After marrying, Ping moved to Hong King with her husband and had three sons.
A police officer close to where the lorry was found in Grays (Image: REUTERS)
She worked her way up the social ladder and became a successful businesswoman with her own factory in her native China.
But this was not enough for the ambitious mother and in 1981 she got a job as a nanny in New York.
She and her husband opened a shop which sold goods for homesick Chinese immigrants.
By the early 80s Ping realised there was money to be made smuggling people from their impoverished lives in China to wealthy America.
Initially running her people smuggling firm as a one woman operation, she charged upwards of £27,000 to transport people from China to the US.
Using commercial airlines and forged travel documents, the scheme was a huge success.
And business really boomed after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
However, Ping's horrific trading had caught the attention of the authorities and she was jailed for six months in that year following a police sting at Tornoto Airport.
Her time in prison, where she was isolated from other inmates as she spoke little English, seemed to fuel her ambition and after her release she stepped up her vile trade.
Ping now had scores of people working for her around the world who would move her human cargo and then hold them hostage until her huge fees were paid and they could be released.
This is a list of the names of people who paid their condolences to Ping following her death (Image: New York Times / Redux / eyevine)
Even if they managed to arrive safely in the US, more horror awaited the terrified migrants.
Ping, at barely 5ft tall, had paid for thugs for hire from the Fuk Ching, which was know as Chinatown's most brutal gang.
Her reputation for brutality and the scale of her operation was immense, she was the world's most norotious snakehead as was known as the 'mother' of the organisation.
By 1997, using violence and threats, Ping had virtually no competition when it came to people smuggling.
She continued her vile business in Rotterdam, where her boyfriend was the feared head of the Triad gang in the city.
Zhang Yuanjing, whose passage to New York from China in 1989 was arranged by Cheng Chui Ping (Image: New York Times / Redux / eyevine)
It meant she had access to the most vicious thugs imaginable, who would torture those who stood in her way.
She also treated rivals with utter brutality.
When a fellow gang leader tried to muscle into her territory, she invited him to dinner before having him beaten with a hammer and shot in both legs.
By now, Ping's operation was vast.
She had a fleet of eight cars, seven safe houses and dozens of people on her payroll.
Her overheads were estimated to be around £35,000 a month but Ping was still amassing a huge fortune believed to be as high as £40million.
But the net was closing in on what has been described by the US Justice Department as "one of the first and ultimately, most successful, alien smugglers of all time".
For five years the FBI were on her trail but as she was believed to now be living in China, which has no extradition treaty with the US, could not be arrested.
Finally Interpol had the breakthrough they were waiting for in 2000.
After constantly searching plane pasenger lists travelling between Hong Kong and New York, the came across Ping's son's name.
Officers were waiting at Hong Kong airport and took her into custody.
Ping fought extradition for three years but was finally sent to the US and put on trial in 2005.
She faced charges of conspiring to commit alien smuggling, hostage taking, money laundering and trafficking in ransom proceeds.
Ping was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Ten years after she was first locked up, Ping said in an interview:
"Being locked up for over 10 years allowed me to think about my previous life, my heart calmed down and I started to feel that jail was the safest place
Read More;
Desperate migrants describe 'death stench' and screams inside pitch black lorries
Essex lorry deaths: Desperate victims 'paid £30k' for 'fly-drive' journey to UK
Chinese 'snakehead' gang hunted over deaths of 39 migrants in Essex lorry
FBI — The Case of the Snakehead Queen
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