The Chinatown Sting
Pushkin Industries
Publishing Details
Contact & Outreach
About This Podcast
In the late 1980s, a group of women connected through the mahjong parlors in Manhattan’s Chinatown were caught in a massive undercover drug bust. This bust was just the beginning of an even bigger case. Host Lidia Jean Kott and co-reporter Shuyu Wang interview sources who’ve never spoken on record before, including witnesses, defendants, and federal prosecutors, to reconstruct a case that still has repercussions today.
The Chinatown Sting drops weekly on Tuesdays.
Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of The Chinatown Sting by subscribing to Pushkin+. Subscribers also get bonus episodes, exclusive binges, full audiobooks, and early ad-free listening for all Pushkin shows.
Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin
Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
Podcasting 2.0 Features
Social Media
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
S1 Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister: Elizabeth Plunkett
Here's a preview of a podcast we think you'll enjoy, Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister, a special limited series from RTÉ. The story of Elizabeth Plunkett – a 23 year old woman from Dublin who was…
S1 Introducing Valley of Shadows: Corruption in California’s Mojave Desert
Valley of Shadows is a new Pushkin true crime podcast that digs into a nearly 30-year old secret buried in the California desert. On June 11, 1998, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy Jon…
S1 Introducing Deep Cover Presents: Snowball
We’re sharing a preview of another podcast we think you’ll enjoy, Deep Cover Presents: Snowball. Snowball follows journalist Ollie Wards as he unravels the wild story of how his own family was taken…
S1 Grandson of a Paper Son
Judge Denny Chin serves on the US Court of Appeals in New York and he’s an expert on Asian Americans and the law. Every year, he helps to stage reenactments of landmark cases in which Asian Americans…
S1 Life as a Flying Dragon
Cowboy, now known as CB, was once a member of the powerful Flying Dragons gang, led by Johnny Eng, aka Onionhead. CB speaks with Lidia Jean Kott about why he joined the gang, about street-violence…
S1E6 Episode 6: A Sense of Order
After five days of deliberation, a jury finally returns a verdict in the case of Johnny Eng. Its ultimate meaning depends on whom you ask — and the lessons it taught the justice system may already be…
S1E5 Episode 5: The Mastermind
Flying Dragons gang leader Johnny Eng faces so many separate counts of heroin smuggling that prosecutors from various jurisdictions have to join forces. But Eng’s defense lawyers ably attack the…
S1E4 Episode 4: A Ghost Hand
Lidia Jean and Shuyu search for traces of Johnny Eng, aka “Onionhead,” the elusive leader of the Flying Dragons gang. He’s nowhere to be found in his former estate in rural Pennsylvania. Back in the…
S1E3 Episode 3: What’s a Friend?
Being only half Chinese, Tina Wong felt like an outsider growing up in Chinatown. But then she met another girl who was a natural leader and included her in the pack. After they grew up, that friend…
S1E2 Episode 2: Onionhead
Tina Wong finds herself in handcuffs in the Brooklyn office of a new federal prosecutor, Beryl Howell. Beryl’s goal is to get Tina to tell her everything she knows about the people who recruited her.…
S1E1 Episode 1: Lucky Bird
After a major bust in 1988, DEA agents are in a race against time to find out who’s behind a scheme to import millions of dollars worth of heroin to the US. They stumble upon some unlikely suspects:…
S1 Introducing: The Chinatown Sting
In the late 1980s, federal authorities laid a trap. They’d gotten a tip that huge amounts of heroin were being mailed to New York City inside boxes filled with tea. The investigation would uncover a…
Frequently Asked Questions
The Chinatown Sting has published 9 episodes since September 2025, covering topics in Documentary, Society & Culture.
The Chinatown Sting is currently dormant with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 33m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for The Chinatown Sting, including email and social media links.
