Hong Kong to target open-top containers at port

HONG KONG - Authorities in the world's second-busiest port have begun targeting the latest wrinkle in human smuggling.

Starting today, all open-top shipping containers will be inspected by customs agents.

The crackdown comes a day after 19 Chinese nationals were discovered inside a container on a freighter docked in Seattle - the second group found in two days. Three of 18 Chinese stowaways discovered Monday were dead.

And the crackdown is about to go high-tech in Vancouver, where a top customs official says a new scanner could let agents see a containers' contents - including contraband or people, Canadian Press reports.

The Mobile Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System can scan a container in less than a minute and provides a picture of its contents on a computer screen, Mike McWhinney, director of Canada Customs in Vancouver, said yesterday.

The open-top design permits top-loading of oversize ma chinery that wouldn't otherwise slide through regular container doors.

Despite daunting statistics - about 15 million containers pass through the port of Hong Kong every year - the use of open-top containers makes it easier for port authorities to narrow their search, because only one or two thousand are shipped every year.

``People here have caught on,'' said Author Bowring, director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association. ``It will become less of a threat.''

The new inspection protocol was announced yesterday during a wharfside demonstration of how customs agents ``rummage'' for contraband in suspect ships.

The stowaways' deaths capped a frustrating few weeks for the local government here, which has tried to respond rapidly to the surge in human smuggling from the vast port.

Embarrassed by the bad publicity, Hong Kong officials shipped the media out on customs launches yesterday to show off the policing process.

Officers in blue berets and baseball caps board the Xing Ji, a 13,000-tonne ship registered in the People's Republic of China, and begin rummaging for smuggling: they search fore and aft with flashlights, peering deep into the bowels of the engine room, and on deck.

An agent dons breathing apparatus and is lowered by rope into a ballast tank in search of contraband and illegal human cargo.

The crew of 25 Shanghainese watch the performance then resume their furious pace of loading 600 containers on to their vessel.

Amid the frenzied activity, the agents look and listen for telltale clues: Coughing or sneezing; mobile phones ringing; signs of human waste.

If the officers had found anything suspicious, the cargo would be ordered into the Customs Examination Compound. ``We never conduct examinations on board,'' explained Ronald Au, head of the Customs Ship Search and Cargo Command. ``You have to have trust in the shipping company.''

But couldn't shippers switch containers, or empty the human cargo before inspection only to put it back on again later?

Au scoffed at the question, citing the pedigree of shipping companies such as Orient Overseas Container Line, which carried the 25 stowaways found in Vancouver's port last week. It is held by the family of Hong Kong's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

``These are world famous shipping lines. Why don't you trust them? They are the middlemen.''

North American authorities share that opinion, arguing it's the land-based exporting companies that are responsible for containers' contents - not the shipping lines that merely move them from port to port.

Indeed, the shipping lines are paying stiff fines for carrying stowaways and face costly delays. Now, they are getting together with the government to try to close the latest loophole in their shipping practices.

After a meeting yesterday, the ship owners agreed to step up inspections with carbon dioxide detectors, increased use of X-ray machines, along with the new focus on the open-top containers.

Shipping companies would report immediately any suspicious shipments and follow agreed procedures to check new clients' business registrations and documents before serving them.

Still, no one is expecting the challenge to disappear. More than 10,000 illegal immigrants entered Hong Kong from the Mainland last year. Thousands of Chinese from the coastal province of Fujian pay ``snakeheads'' as much as $50,000 to smuggle them to the U.S. by any means possible.