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Friday, May 05, 2000

Canadian was key in migrant sting
Posed as corrupt official

Randy Richmond
The Canadian Press

DETROIT - An Ontario man played a key role in orchestrating an undercover sting that U.S. authorities say unravelled a massive Chinese smuggling ring trying to sneak hundreds of Chinese migrants into the United States.

Project Squeeze Play, headed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, snared nine people, including five Canadians.

A U.S. grand jury indicted six people -- including two of the Canadians -- on charges of conspiring to smuggle aliens, smuggling aliens and bribery.

The Ontario man -- who didn't want his identity revealed because he fears for his life -- posed as a corrupt immigration officer.

"I wanted to do something that was important -- something that could change the world," said the man, a resident of London, Ont.

Two Canadians were indicted as a result -- one man from Toronto, another from Winnipeg. A Scarborough, Ont., man and his two daughters were arrested as the sting ended but were not indicted by the grand jury.

The four-month operation saw up to 20 migrants and 425 Chinese passports brought into the United States, greased by US$260,000 in bribes.

Migrant passports were given in China to smuggling gang leaders, known as snakeheads, who sold them from a central office in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province and China's chief smuggling centre, sources said.

Smugglers then took the passports to the United States, where they bribed the undercover agent to put U.S. visas in the passports and ensure safe passage on commercial flights through Detroit's Metro Airport.

Sources say the visas were obtained by an undercover officer posing as a corrupt immigration agent with contacts in the United States embassy in Toronto.

The operation brought in 16 migrants, who came to Canada in three separate trips as test runs to lure the smugglers into believing a larger operation would run smoothly, sources said.

The whereabouts of those 16 aliens remain unknown, Gina Vitrano, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said yesterday.

The sting ended in a dramatic arrest at a Detroit motel on Wednesday morning after undercover agents drew two suspects, Tong Choe, 60, of Toronto, and Hyo Young Park, 59, of Winnipeg, to the motel for a meeting.

Yu Feng Liu of Camp Hill, Pa., was arrested late on Tuesday in Detroit, said Vitrano.

Liu, Choe and Park appeared in U.S. federal court yesterday and were ordered to spend at least another night in jail as a judge weighs whether they should be freed on bond.

Following the government's appeal of an earlier ruling that each of the suspects should be freed on $50,000 personal recognizance bond, U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan ordered the detention hearing to resume today.

In arguing that the three remain jailed pending trial, assistant federal prosecutor Barb McQuade called the suspects "cavalier" and well-connected with ready access to cash and passports to hasten their flight from prosecution.


 
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