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.
|
.gif){kind=small}
.gif){kind=small}