Asia-Pacific

Two dozen Chinese nabbed in smuggling bust

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-09 10:28

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement reaffirmed its commitment to fight against human smuggling days after local authorities arrested 24 Chinese nationals who tried to illegally enter Guam on a boat.

"Human smuggling is a dangerous, multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise that puts those involved at high risk," said Wayne Wills, the special agent who oversees customs investigative activities in Hawaii, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Wills added that US customs is committed to working with its partners in relevant departments to "not only disrupt this kind of activity, but to identify and dismantle the criminal organizations behind it", reported the local newspaper Mariana Variety.

On Tuesday, 24 Chinese nationals were arrested as they attempted to enter the US illegally through Guam. They boarded a boat in Saipan, a resort island 150 miles north of Guam.

The paper quoted assistant US Attorney Kirk Schuler as saying they were arrested before the boat sailed off. And the arrest was made "to minimize injuries".

He said a "substantial amount of money" was involved in the foiled human smuggling.

The 24 defendants - 18 males and six females - are under the custody of the US Marshals Service. Their jury trial starts on Feb 22.

The federal government filed charges of attempting to bring an alien into the US against two individuals, Li Jian and Cheng Qingmei, who are said to be the organizers of the group.

The rest of the 22 arrested individuals were each charged with attempted improper entry by an alien into the US.

All the defendants are over 21 years old and pled not guilty to the charges.

The paper quoted Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Blu Shiroma, who has been working with Guam customs, as saying that he led an undercover investigation into alien smuggling, "whereby known individuals have represented explicit desires to smuggle themselves from Saipan to Guam by boat."

An undercover customs agent acted as a boat captain and spoke with defendant Chen Junhua several times. Chen informed the undercover agent of their desire to be smuggled to Guam in exchange for money, Shiroma stated.

Shiroma said the undercover agent made it clear to the defendants that it was illegal for them to enter Guam.

On Tuesday, a plan was relayed to the defendants who then met with the undercover agent.

Shiroma said the defendants were arrested based upon probable cause that they attempted to unlawfully enter the US.

The economy of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam relies heavily on foreign workers, mostly from the Philippines, China and other Asian counties.

Statistics showed that Guam has been a hot destination for stowaways from the Chinese mainland since the 1990s. In 1999 alone, over 1,000 illegal immigrants were arrested.

China Daily