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.
|
![[Festivals]](july23nationalpost_files/frontfest.gif)
.gif){kind=small}
.gif){kind=small}