Episode 2: Onionhead from The Chinatown Sting

Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister

Pushkin Industries

True Crime, History

4.6 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. But Chinatown is a dangerous place in the 1980s, and few low-level suspects want to talk. We hear from Chinatown author Henry Chang and former gang members Mike Moy and Peter Chin about the violence and impossible choices Chinatown residents faced in those days.

For more, check out:

Henry Chang’s series Detective Yu Investigations.

Mike Moy’s Chinatown Gang Stories channel on YouTube.

Peter Chin’s book, In the Ghost Shadows.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:09.8	Hey everyone. Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can listen to the full season of the Chinatown staying
0:16.8	ad-free right now by signing up for Pushkin Plus.
0:28.3	You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and other true crime binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors.
0:35.4	Find Pushkin Plus on the Chinatownsting show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus.
0:40.2	Previously on the Chinatown sting.
0:47.2	I was talking to a customs agent in California who says,
0:50.0	hey, we just got three shipments of heroin.
0:51.8	Do you guys want the case?
0:55.8	It was like the first time we've ever seen anything like that, really.
1:00.8	Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these, you know, these large amounts of heroin.
1:06.2	We don't have that kind of money, so to have that kind of money, you take a chance.
1:14.6	Federal authorities arrested Tina Wong on March 1st, 1988. She was accused of receiving packages of heroin in the mail.
1:18.6	They took Tina to a jail in Long Island, miles away from her home outside of Manhattan's Chinatown.
1:24.6	And at this moment, the gravity must be hitting you.
1:30.1	Yeah.
1:31.1	Especially when they tell you 25 years to life, which I didn't think was fair, but I don't make the rules.
1:38.1	Tina was put in a cell.
1:39.8	She doesn't remember much else.
1:42.4	Were you crying?
1:44.5	Yeah, because I was mad.
1:47.6	Not at yourself, not at the rule?
	...

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