Operating from Chinatown, Manhattan, Ping oversaw a snakehead smuggling ring which brought as many as 3,000 Chinese into the United States, earning her more than $40 million.

[1] The United States Department of Justice called Ping "one of the first, and ultimately most successful, alien smugglers of all time.

[4] Growing up, she attended the village elementary school and worked on the family farm, helping raise pigs and rabbits, chopping wood, and tending a vegetable garden.

He stayed in the U.S. for thirteen years, working as a dish-washer and sending money home to the family every few months.

[4] During her time in New York, Ping lived at 14 Monroe Street, Knickerbocker Village, a modest lower middle class development.

As she spoke little English, she was isolated from other prisoners and readily agreed to provide a Chinese-speaking FBI agent with information on Chinatown's underworld, she received a reduced sentence and served four months.

[9] Business picked up after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when the U.S. government offered Chinese students present in the United States at the time the opportunity to stay.

[7] On June 6, 1993, the Golden Venture ship ran aground in Queens, New York, with 286 illegal immigrants on board.

However, there are doubts about Guo Liang Chi's claim because he wanted to blame another person to reduce his federal sentence on other crimes that he committed over the years.

In 1998, one of the smaller boats Sister Ping used for offloading customers from a larger vessel capsized off the coast of Guatemala, drowning fourteen.

Sometimes her customers were lucky and arrived safely in the United States where they paid the exorbitant fees Sister Ping charged, and were released.

The U.S. Department of Justice declared at her sentencing that "Sister Ping is one of the first, and ultimately most successful, human smugglers of all time.

Aged 65, Ping died quietly at noon on April 24, 2014, surrounded by her family at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Texas.

[19] The 2021 film Snakehead, written and directed by Evan Jackson Leong, was loosely inspired by Sister Ping.