Transcript
A (0:09)
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Chinatown attracts New Yorkers and tourists alike for its authentic cuisine, shopping and cultural events. Thousands flock to the area every lunar new year to celebrate. But Chinatown isn't just a tourist destination. Like most immigrant communities, it's just home. But like this big cities, it has had its problems. A new podcast spotlights the 1980s Chinatown drug trafficking problem. Law enforcement had discovered large quantities of heroin was being moved by Chinatown gangs. It was a highly lucrative business, but it also came with risks. Fights over who controlled the distribution were becoming even more violent. An investigation that helped bring down one of the most powerful gangsters. And it all started with the arrest of a single mom who had been recruited through her mahjong club. The podcast is called the Chinatown Sting. It's hosted by journalist Lydia Jean Nod. She's a senior editor and producer at Pushkin Industries and is a report of stories for the BBC, NPR, and here at wnyc. Lydia joins us today. Hi, Lydia.
B (1:20)
Hi.
A (1:20)
So you mentioned that you discovered this case when Sun Wong gave you a box of documents, and it was given to you by your boyfriend's mom, who happens to be a federal judge. So who is she and how does she come to give you this box?
B (1:34)
Yes. So her name is Beryl Howell, and she's a federal judge in Washington, D.C. so she's overseen a lot of high profile cases, like secret grand jury investigations into President Trump, the case against Giuliani, etc. I've known her for a very long time, ever since I was in elementary school, actually. So we're in the same, you know, same neighborhood. She's someone who I look up to a lot. And she's actually why I decided I wanted to report about the law, because I feel like, you know, the law can seem very intimidating. Courthouses kind of look like churches, judges wear robes. It's kind of a scary thing. And she kind of demystified it for me. And then I wanted to do that in my reporting. And this case is her first case. It started just a few weeks on the job, and I felt like if I explored it and understood it, I would also understand how she came to do the law the way that she does the law and understand kind of like how people who do justice think about justice.
C (2:31)
Yeah, we should make that point. That when it started, she was just at the beginning of her career in the 1980s. I mean, she went from, you know, from adjudicating on January 6 rioters. But in 1988, where was she what was she doing? Tell us a little bit more about Beryl.
B (2:49)
Yes. So she was a prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, which is in Brooklyn. And she had been on the job basically just a few weeks. Wow. And, yeah, she was in the situation where there were all these women who had young children who were in custody, and they were accused of accepting these boxes that had stuffed animals, tea, and millions of dollars worth of heroin. And she needed to know why they did it and for who, and they weren't talking.