Migrant smuggling
continues despite 'biggest' bust WebPosted Fri Aug 27 18:54:47 1999
TORONTO - Canadian and American
authorities say the breakup of a huge Chinese migrant smuggling ring
in Central Canada has done little to stop the business of
trafficking people.
Police estimate
the smugglers ferried more than 100 Chinese nationals halfway
around the globe each month.
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Last December, police rounded up
45 suspects in a smuggling ring that operated from Fujian province
in China, through Mohawk territory near Cornwall, Ont. and into the
United States.
It was the biggest bust of its kind.
When U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announced the arrests last
December she said the bust had "crippled another smuggling syndicate
that sought to profit in human misery."
It was a multi-million-dollar business.
Police estimate the smugglers ferried more than 100 Chinese
nationals halfway around the globe each month.
But the numbers of illegal migrants caught at the border haven't
changed much since then.
Law enforcement officials said they recently nabbed dozens of
illegal migrants trying to cross into the U.S. near Windsor, Ont.
Paid smugglers have been helping the migrants slip across the
border in the Lake St. Clair area, officials told CBC News.
And off Canada's west coast, RCMP Const. Marie Claude Arsenault
has watched the shiploads of Chinese migrants arrive. She says the
police haven't been able to do much about the problem.
"I see that we haven't had a great impact because they found
other means of coming to Canada, because they were still coming by
boat at the time when we were investigating those peoples,"
Arsenault told CBC News.
"It just keeps going. There's a lot of money to be made."
American officials agree.
"Any time you dismantle one organization there's always
individuals willing to step up into that vacuum and start the
criminal activity anew," said Michael Gilhooly of the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service.
As for the biggest bust in history, half of the suspected
smugglers have pleaded guilty in the United States -- the latest
entered a plea just last week.
In Canada, no pleas have been entered and no suspects are even
close to going on trial.
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