Episode Transcript
Pushkin In New York City in nineteen eighty eight, federal authorities laid a trap.
They'd gotten a tip that a vast amount of heroin was being mailed to the city inside boxes filled with tea.
Speaker 2All you gotta do is we see in the package.
Don't have to open it, just accept it, and that's it.
Speaker 3It was a slow beep.
You're listening in and you hear the beat beat beeping in.
When a rapid beap goes bet BBP beat, that means it's been open.
Speaker 1This sting was huge.
Speaker 3We probably had about thirty agents.
We had undercover postal agents in uniform attempt to deliver the package at each location.
Speaker 1That day.
The Feds caught low level drug courriers, mostly women who played Majrong together and town.
Speaker 2I would play MJ with them, Majohn and I beat them.
Speaker 3Read her rights, you know in Cantonese, Amandarin.
I forgot exactly which one it was.
She was very upset, crying.
Speaker 2They took my daughter's picture off the refrigerator.
They go, is this your daughter?
I said yes, They go, oh, you may not see her for like twenty five years.
Speaker 1My name is Lidia jen Kok.
For the last few years, I've been trying to unravel what happened to a group of moms who played Majong in Chinatown.
How they got pulled into a criminal underworld.
To escape, they were forced to play the highest takes game of their lives.
Speaker 3I couldn't trust her.
I was not going to put her on the stand.
Speaker 4That was the moment that she realized that she was not really being paranoid, and everything she did has a consequence.
Speaker 3Five secs white white people, you know, push in the corn.
What the hell not to take with the mafi I don't.
Speaker 5Know they can get to any resident in Chinatown.
So that's why the fear is there, because there's no place for the residents to go.
Speaker 2Once I saw the gon I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light, and that was it.
Speaker 1This is the Chinatown Sting.
Speaker 3When you place money about your heartbeat, that's where it goes.
That's your adrenaline rush.
That's the worst you want.
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