 China has strengthened efforts to crack down on illegal emigration, and 42 people charged with being involved in China's largest people smuggling operation in over 50 years were put on trial.
Influenced by the wave of illegal immigration worldwide and misled by criminal groups, many people choose the route of illegal immigration hoping to seek their fortunes in foreign countries. From 1998 to 2002, the largest human-smuggling gang since 1949 in China shipped illegal immigrants, most of whom were from southern Fujian province, through sea ports in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Liaoning and the municipalities of Shanghai and Tianjin. Among the members of this gang arrested were shipping company personnel who cooperated with "snakeheads" by providing ships under the guise that the human smugglers were legitimate leasing and trade partners.
The International Criminal Police Organization estimates human smuggling generates $30 billion per year, making it the most lucrative crime after drugs and arms smuggling. Due to the fact that almost all cases of illegal emigration have an international background and ringleaders and vessels normally come from abroad, international cooperation is being strengthened in the crackdown on illegal emigration. While ringleaders must be severely punished according to law, an important part of the overall campaign to combat this crime is public education so that people can be disillusioned of the false dream of overseas windfalls.
Deaths of stowaways have often been reported in illegal immigration activities in recent years. Early morning on June 19th, 2000, customs officers in Dover Port in Britain uncovered 60 stowaways from China’s Fujian Province on a tomato truck while making a routine check, 58 were already dead. A year later, in October 2001, 25 stowaways from Fujian were also found dead because of suffocation in a freighter cabin in Lishui, South Korea.
Police from all countries have strengthened cooperation in cracking down on human smuggling. But most of the time the snakeheads, who take charge of transporting the stowaways, are hard to catch.
On November 25th, 2002, the Intermediate Court of Nanjing dealt with the largest human smuggling case ever. 42 suspects were put on trial. Their 150-member human smuggling gang is the biggest ever to come under the crackdown by security departments. Since 1998, the gang organized over 700 stowaways in 38 batches from 19 ports in 10 Chinese coastal cities. Nearly 400 people were secretly shipped out of China. Driven by a desire for money, bosses of six shipping companies mobilized 10 oceangoing freighters to traffic stowaways.
Snakehead Chen Wenshu began to engage in organizing human smuggling in 1998. He didn’t use fishing boats as other ringleaders have and instead focused on oceangoing freighters. He organized 38 separate instances of human smuggling. Renting the ships was the first step of his illegal activity.
Wangcheng, was a department head of a shipping company in Anhui Province. Knowing that Chen Wenshu was interested in illegal dealings, Wang still introduced him to Xufei and Taoxue, heads of ship manufacturing and shipping service companies, and helped Chen rent ocean freighters from these people.
〝The ordinary fare was US$1,200 for one day, but we charged Chen Wenshu US$2,400,〞Wangcheng said.
〝I paid them cash. They thought the price not bad; they could earn profit and agreed to rent the ships to me,〞Chen Wenshu said.
Chen Wenshu rented ocean freighters from several shipping service companies at prices one or two times of the market prices.
With rented freighters that secured, Chen Wenshu set his second step of making secret concealments in the ship cabins.
The human smuggling gang with Chen Wenshu as the snakehead used 〝Zhenfeng〞 No. 2, an ordinary commodity freighter from Anqing Shipping Service Company in Anhui Province, four times to secretly transport 35 stowaways to Japan from 1999 to Jan. 2000. How did Shen Wenshu use the freighter for human smuggling? Was there anything special in this ship different from the ordinary. A draft structure of the ship looks no different from other ships, but a secret cabin was built at the head cabin of the ship to hide the stowaways right under the deck. It is about a dozen square meters and can hold about 20 persons at a time.
Such secret cabins were put in different places on each ship. The only thing similar was that the secret cabins were all very well hidden and hard to discover. In July of 1998, Chen Wenshu hired “Lujiang” from Yaoxue of Anhui Shipping Service Company. Chen and his gang used an iron board to block the opening of the trunk and partitioned a secret cabin capable of hiding 30 stowaways.
According to Ye Hang, a Jiangsu frontiers police, 〝It was very tricky. The entrance of the engine room was covered by a toolbox with tools in it. It would escape examination when the door was closed. As is commonplace, we don’t come down and make inspection without definite information. And even if we reach this part of the ship, with the iron board welded and the sound of the engine, we would never discover that there was someone hiding inside.〞
〝This secret cabin can hold over 100 hundred people,〞Chen Wenshu said.
〝FengShun No. 8〞is the ship that Chen used to smuggle people to other countries. The secret cabin was built between the hold and the engine room. They used the secret cabin to transport 75 people to Japan at one time in 1999. When the case was uncovered, the frontier police tore apart the secret cabin. But the traces are still visible. One entrance was under the bed and the other behind the electrical panel. Chen Wenshu paid 500,000 yuan and asked the ship manufacturer to make the secret cabin for him.
In addition to using secret cabins, Chen Wenshu also made use of sailor’s certificates for human trafficking. They replaced the photos of sailors with those of the stowaways for them to board the ship.
Wang Jiaqiang, is former chairman of a shipping company in Dalian, Liaoning Province. He was a college classmate of Yaoxue, general manager of a shipping company in Anhui province. He met Chen Wenshu through Yaoxue and offered Chen 4 freighters and received 2.6 million yuan in return. Knowing that Chen wenshu was smuggling people, Wang still helped Chen get more crew.
According to Wang, Chen Wenshu 〝was indicating that he wanted to use sailor′s certificates to transport stowaways and asked me the number of fixed crew on my freighter.〞
〝I told the fixed crew was 23 when I was in charge and was later reduced to 17. Chen asked whether I could extend it to 23 again. I said yes and made applications to the ship inspection office that in turn approved the change,〞Wang added.
With the active participation of Wang Cheng, Xufei, Wang Jiaqiang and others, Chen Wenshu was completely prepared for his series of human smuggling activities.
From 1998 to 2000, Chen Wenshu and his gang deliberately directed his ocean freighters to make a detour to Xinghua Bay in Putian in Fujian Province. Stowaways were dispatched to the freighter in the shade and were secretly transported outside China.
How could they check? The High Seas are so vast, how do you know which one is engaged in human smuggling? Besides, it is very difficult for ships to come close to each other on the high seas. You need advanced facility and energy to do that. If one ship spots that there are many stowaways on another, isn’t that too obvious?
According to Chen Wenshu, 〝How could they see anything since you are hidden inside? You can see nothing inside the cabins. 〞
〝The danger is that you don′t have enough life saving equipment once the ship is caught in danger, because the equipment is arranged according to the fixed number of the crew. The other danger is that the carbon dioxide displaces the breatheable air with so many people inside; and without fresh air coming in, the stowaways might be suffocated,〞said
Xu Fei, former Chairman Meilinghua Shippping Service Company, Anhui Province.
In June 1998, Chen Wenshu rented Anhuaxin and transported 20 plus stowaways to Japan. But the stowaways were suffocating inside and knocked heavily on the cabin wall. The Japanese workers were suspicious of the knocking sound and made inquiries to the captain.
Zhang Zhengguo, former captain of An Huaxing, said: 〝The Japanese asked me why should we have a knocking sound on our ship. It was really loud; people in the engine room were quick minded and began to knock the cabin walls. So when the Japanese asked, we replied that our crew was working in the engine room and diverted their attention..〞
〝How much would one stowaway pay when he reached Japan?〞thr reporter asked.
〝About 150,000 yuan,〞answered Chen Wenshu.
〝What if they went to some other places, say, the United States?〞
〝About US$30,000-35,000. Safety is very important, if you arrive safely, you have to pay more. 〞
According to Xu fei, the stowaways were locked up after they reached the destination country. They were asked to call home and ask their family to pay the money. Each was released after his family paid the money.
In Chen’s 38 batches of human smuggling, 4 were foiled by foreign police, but Chen was still at large, as he was well prepared to escape.
〝He didn’t use one freighter too many times, twice, or three times. If you use one ship all the time, you are likely to be caught and the whole thing will be uncovered. He changed freighters so that his other dealings wouldn’t be found out even if one were caught,〞Xu Fei to reporter.
How was Chen Wenshu captured then? On November 25th, 2000, a freighter named “Fuyuan” departed from Xiamen Port with 17 stowaways onboard and was seized by Japanese maritime police when it arrived at a Japanese Port. They found out that the registered owner of the freighter was Zhu Shaowei from Hong Kong, but they never found such a person even after a thorough investigation. The frontier administration of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security appointed frontier police in Jiansu province to investigate this case.
Wu Guangliang, director of Jiangsu Frontier Bureau, said:〝We formed a special investigation team from the best of our staff and spared no efforts in solving the case.〞
The special investigation group led to Xu Fei and Ji Shaobin, general manager and the personnel department manager of the company as major suspects and the first clue to the true identity of the owner of the freighter.
Sun Qin, dept. director of JiangSu Frontier Bureau, said: 〝Though there were lots of setbacks, we solved the case from that first clue.〞
No one had expected that a name card of Chen Wenshu that he used to cover his identity served as a clue to the case. The frontier police spent about one year investigating and finally dug out the biggest human smuggling gang of Chen Wenshu. Altogether 38 organizers and carriers were seized.
〝I was thinking a lot. What is the good of money once you’ve lost your freedom? What I’m thinking now is that the best thing is to lead a peaceful life,〞said Chen Wenshu.
〝Article 318 and 321 stipulate that a person is liable for cumulative punishment if he is involved in murder, bodily injury, rape or selling stowaways in the process of transporting them secretly to other countries. The death penalty will be imposed in cases of intentional homicide,〞Wang Min, judge of 00Nanjing Intermediate Court, Jiangsu Province told reporter.
To safeguard political and social stability, and maintain a positive national image and maritime economic order, the public security departments across China launched a three-month joint anti-human smuggling campaign starting April 2002, focusing their attention on illegal emigration by sea. Over 8000 stowaways and more than 1700 organizers and carriers have been brought to justice since 2001.
Guo Xiqin, vice director of Frontier Administration, Ministry of Public Security, said:〝We are convinced that with our concentrated efforts and experience, with international cooperation, especially with the force of legislation, even the most cunning snakeheads have no way to escape our grip.〞
The “Fuyuan” human smuggling ring was brought to trial early this year in the Intermediate Court of Nanjing. The 4 snakeheads including Chen Wenshu and Wang Cheng were sentenced to life imprisonment, with permanent deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all their property. Three others were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and a 400,000 yuan fine. The rest were sentenced to 2-10 years of custody respectively.
The 150-member human smuggling gang of the “Fuyuan Vessel”, since 1998, organized over 700 stowaways in 38 groups from 19 ports of 10 Chinese coastal cities, with nearly 400 people secretly shipped out of China.
In 2002, the local frontier defense authorities of Fujian Province foiled more than 30 attempts at human-smuggling, seizing some 350 stowaways and over 200 organizers, including snakeheads, who were in charge of transporting the stowaways.
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