VANCOUVER - THE NICKNAME sounds exotic. The business is pure misery.

``Snakeheads'' have for decades illegally smuggled people around the globe. But they have swept into the Canadian consciousness with the arrival since July of four boatloads of Chinese nationals off the West Coast.

It's their nearly 600 customers who have become the focus of most public attention. They're dubbed criminals or queue-jumpers on one side, victims or slaves on the other.

But federal authorities say the only lawbreakers in all of this are the Snakeheads, so named because migrants need the lead of someone who will help them twist and turn to get around immigration laws.

Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan says human smugglers undermine Canada's immigration and refugee system. ``Their actions make Canadians cynical and divert attention from the plight of genuine refugees,'' she said in a speech here last month.

Often with links to Triads, or other members of the Chinese underworld, the Snakeheads operate sophisticated networks to get people from China into Canada. The final destination is often New York City, home to many of the estimated 100,000 Chinese who have come to North America illegally in recent years.

Fujian province in southern China is their favourite spot for recruiting and departure. Snakeheads, or their agents, solicit passengers with tales of the great wealth that awaits in North America.

The price of passage is steep. Typically, a deposit is paid on a trip that can cost up to $75,000, with the rest to be worked off once the migrant arrives in North America. If they don't pay, the Snakehead knows where remaining family members live.

The profits from human smuggling - up to $3.5 million for a boatload - are used to finance other criminal activities. ``Their motivation is profit and in some cases very large profit,'' says David Hardinge of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in Ottawa.

With such large stakes, Snakehead agents or enforcers follow every step of the journey of those who leave China. If the migrants arrive safely - no sure bet, especially given the decrepit boats used for passage to Canada's West Coast this summer - they are completely controlled.

Work is often arranged for them in garment sweatshops or restaurants, so they can pay off their debt. Migrants may also be forced to commit crimes for gangs linked to the Snakeheads or to become prostitutes.

``They are just moved along like commodities,'' says Victor Wong, executive director of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. ``It's the business of human misery.

``This isn't helping people escape slavery - it's committing them to it.''

The Snakeheads or their agents still exert influence even if the Chinese migrants are caught by Canadian authorities. At least three dozen of the people from the first boat seized have disappeared, even though they made refugee claims and were released with a promise to show up for hearings.

Police, immigration officials and members of the Vancouver Chinese community believe Snakehead agents may have forced these people to move on to Toronto and then New York City to fill low-wage jobs and begin paying off their debts.

Despite the bleak assessment of life as a Chinese migrant in North America, Rutgers University sociologist Ko-lin Chin says there continues to be a ready supply of people willing to risk everything to make the journey.

``For them, going abroad is a good thing to do, and whether a person achieves this goal legally or illegally is insignificant,'' Chin wrote in a report, Smuggled Chinese Immigrants In America. ``The bottom line is whether a person makes it or not. Those who succeed were praised, those who failed were looked down upon.''

The Mounties treat the Snakeheads just like other organized crime gangs operating in the country, says Corporal Ray Legare of the RCMP in Victoria. They are also working with authorities in the U.S. and Australia who have more experience in dealing with boatloads of Chinese migrants arriving illegally, he says.

Canada and China have agreed to co-operate in combating crime, including illegal immigration and human smuggling. Other countries experiencing a recent increase in Chinese migrants - Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and the U.S. - will no doubt raise the heat on Beijing.

China has been cracking down on human smugglers in recent years but Canadian authorities acknowledge even thousands of illegal migrants are given low priority in a country of more than 1 billion people. ``It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know we can't do much in China,'' Legare says.

Canada has stiff penalties for those convicted of human smuggling - up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $500,000. But Wong of the local Association of Chinese Canadians says until there are some convictions of Snakeheads or their agents, the traffic in misery is destined to continue.

``We must arrest the real criminals in all of this. That's the only way we're going to stop the criminal connections in this human pipeline.''