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12,600 illegal immigrants arrested in past 4 years

By Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-09 08:22

Police have handled more than 6,400 cases of people trying to go abroad illegally since 2004, the Ministry of Public Security said on Monday.

A total of 12,645 people had been arrested, including 2,213 "snakeheads" (human traffickers), it said on its website.

Frontier police have made significant progress in the prevention and control of such activities in the past four years because of increased monitoring of major roads, mountain paths and other overland routes linking China to the outside world, it said.

Similar efforts were also made by harbor police as the sea route "is most commonly used to smuggle people abroad", the ministry said.

Last year, the Frontier Defense Management Bureau launched a crack down on human smugglers in seven provinces, where frequent trafficking cases were found.

"From smuggling people through land and sea routes, to arranging business trips abroad with false identity papers, illegal immigration gangs keep finding new ways," the ministry said.

From March 22 to April 30 last year, Guangdong frontier police uncovered 44 illegal immigration cases involving 113 people.

In January this year, police in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, in a joint effort, arrested 108 people and 34 human traffickers. The immigrants were on their way to the United States via South America.

In February, Shanghai police broke up a gang that had sent hundreds of people illegally out of the country since 2000, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.

Headed by Jiang Yi, Xie Huaxin and Wang Lanping, the gang furnished false documents to obtain visas. Each immigrant had paid between 30,000 yuan ($4,500) and 100,000 yuan.

Jiang told the immigrants that they should pass themselves off as owners of big companies, and had solid business backgrounds.

"Illegal immigrants have not only seriously damaged the country's social order but also brought heavy economic losses upon themselves," Yang Jie, chief of the Jinshan division of the Shanghai municipal police bureau, said.

A woman surnamed Wang told CCTV she paid 60,000 yuan to Jiang to enable her move to a European country a year ago.

She said life abroad was horrible, and it was difficult to keep a job. "I live and work in the shadows as I don't have a legal identity. It is very difficult to make money and have a good life as I had expected," she told CCTV.