Introducing The Chinatown Sting: Lucky Bird

Introducing The Chinatown Sting: Lucky Bird

From The China History Podcast by Laszlo Montgomery

September 23, 2025 · 40 min

About this episode

This episode previews a new podcast about a massive undercover drug bust in Manhattan's Chinatown during the late 1980s.

Here's a preview of a new podcast, The Chinatown Sting, from our friends at Pushkin Industries. 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. But 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 and impacted the history of American Chinatowns themselves, which developed to protect immigrants from a hostile society. Listen to The Chinatown Sting wherever you get podcasts and binge the entire season, ad-free, with a Pushkin+ subscription—sign up on The Chinatown Sting Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus .

People in this episode

Host: Lidia Jean Kott

Guest: Shuyu Wang

Topics covered

  • undercover drug bust
  • Chinatown history
  • immigrant protection
  • mahjong parlors
  • interviews
  • reconstruction of a case

Keywords

  • Chinatown Sting
  • drug bust
  • mahjong
  • interviews
  • Pushkin Industries
  • Lidia Jean Kott
  • Shuyu Wang
  • American Chinatowns
  • history
  • society

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pushkin Industries

Places: Manhattan's Chinatown, American Chinatowns

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