National Post Online - news
National Post
 News Financial Post Arts & Life Sports Commentary Diversions Forums

[Festivals]

X-Canada Elections

 Canada
 + News
 + Reporter
 + Politics
 + West to East

 World
 + News
 + Postcard
 + Special Reports


Careerclick

Special Features







Search Help
Sort by:
Date
Rank
 
Category


Friday, July 23, 1999

RCMP looks for link between illegal aliens, crime data
Fingerprinting begins

Mark Hume
National Post

VANCOUVER - Criminal investigators with the RCMP's immigration and passport section have begun the painstaking process of interviewing and fingerprinting the 123 illegal aliens who arrived off the West Coast this week, in a leaking, decrepit freighter.

The fingerprints will be run through international crime data bases, looking for matchups or any clues to who organized the largest attempted human smuggling operation in British Columbia's history.

Corporal Grant Learned, the RCMP's spokesman in B.C., said police want to know who ran the operation and whether it is part of a larger, international smuggling effort.

"Is this linked? We don't know yet. We're still gathering information," said Corp. Learned yesterday, as police and immigration officials began interviewing the illegal aliens who are being held at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, near Victoria.

"We are looking for information that could link with other files, that could be consistent with patterns world wide," he said. "This type of thing isn't unique to B.C. This has been happening in the U.S. and other countries such as Australia."

Corp. Learned said obtaining a vessel, outfitting it and getting 123 people across the Pacific Ocean implies a fairly high level of organization.

"The people we're interested in are the organizers, the people responsible for putting this together," he said.

One avenue police particularly want to explore is the question of what would have happened to the immigrants had the ship been able to land on the B.C. coast, undetected.

Corp. Learned said it is likely that there was some sort of network in place to get the illegal immigrants from the drop point to a city.

About a dozen RCMP officers began the interview process yesterday, aided by interpreters, and Corp. Learned said they hope to work through the 123 illegal aliens by the end of the week.

"We have a bunch of people with no identification, no passports," he said.

A small group of about 11 people, "may be just more than passengers on the ship," said Corp. Learned, but so far the captain and crew have not yet been positively identified.

The ship's passengers are thought to come from the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, a major source of illegal immigrants to North America.

Jim Fisher, of the RCMP's Criminal Intelligence Service, said the Fujianese community has grown rapidly in Canada recently, in Toronto jumping to about 8,000 people from nothing in the past several years.

RCMP were tipped about 18 months ago that a new flood of illegal immigrants would arrive on the West Coast.

The ship, which has had all its identity markings removed, was spotted Tuesday by a fisheries patrol aircraft.

Const. Learned says police investigators are aware of reports of a so called "ghost ship"off the coast of the Queen Charlottes, a few weeks ago, that may have also been involved in smuggling. But he said authorities have nothing firm to go on.

"In light of what happened this week it does raise some questions," he said.

The ship was spotted by military patrol aircraft, dead in the water, drifting off the West Coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands. By the time a Coast Guard ship arrived the next morning, there was no sign of the vessel. It is presumed the ship was abandoned and sunk.

"In terms of confirming anything -- we just can't" said Corp. Learned.

 
 Home Site Map Feedback Info

Copyright © Southam Inc. All rights reserved.
Optimized for browser versions 3.0 and higher.