Snakeheads expose cruelsome truth

Home>>China

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, February 13, 2004

Snakeheads expose cruelsome truth

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

Family members of the missing and deceased Chinese cockle pickers who were caught in fast-rising tides in a northwestern English bay last week urged British and Chinese authorities to allow them to fly to Britain to help with identification and retrieval of the bodies.

A total of 16 families in East China's Fujian Province have had no contact with relatives in the United Kingdom since the tragedy last Thursday in Morecambe Bay, local police said.

Nineteen Chinese migrants, comprising 17 men and two women, drowned on a beach while gathering shellfish. Another 16 cockle pickers, including 14 Chinese and two Europeans, survived the incident.

If the identities of the dead have been confirmed, Britain's Fujian Association will provide help for victimized families to retrieve the bodies, association representative He Jiajin said yesterday.

The association will provide legal aid to members of the victim's families and help them to sue the local bosses for manslaughter, He said.

British police said yesterday that eight of the victims have been matched to profiles provided by British immigration authorities. There is no guarantee, however, that those profiles provide the true identities, since the victims were in the country illegally.

Still, the local coroner has not released the bodies of the victims, said Liz Riding, a spokeswoman for the Lancashire Constabulary in England which is leading the investigation.

British police on Wednesday released five people who were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter involving the 19 cockle pickers. Two women were set free on police bail, while three men were released but then handed over into the custody of British immigration services, Riding said yesterday.

The five had originally been on the list of the 16 survivors.

One day earlier, British businessman David Eden and his son, also named David, voluntarily turned themselves in to police, were released on bail but are due to reappear before authorities on April 12.

Illegal immigration between China and England started to pick up steam about 15 years ago, Edward Venning with the British National Crime Intelligence Service told China Daily yesterday in a telephone interview.

Many of the stowaways are on the hook to snakehead human smugglers who are often associated with organized crime both in Europe and at home in China, Venning said.

"The snakeheads often have some very strong contacts abroad and they may have a parent group back in the home country,'' he said.

"Being an island, England has fairly tight borders, meaning that if you want to get into the country (illegally) you will need to contact an organized crime organization.''

Human smuggling from China made world headlines in June 2000 when 58 Chinese illegal immigrants from Fujian were found suffocated in a truck arriving at the British port of Dover from the Netherlands.

The Ministry of Public Security has enhanced co-operation with Britain and other countries to fight against immigration crimes in recent years, ministry officials said.

According to the United Nations, there were about 3 million illegal immigrants in Europe by 1998, a huge jump from the less than 2 million in 1991.

In 2000, China jumped to sixth on the list of home countries of asylum seekers to Europe with 12,906 refugees while in 1999, China ranked ninth with 10,506 refugees, according to UN statistics.

In August 2003, six Chinese citizens from Fujian drowned near Viet Nam when human smugglers tossed them overboard in an effort to lighten their weight and evade authorities.

Snakeheads expose cruelsome truth

Though British authorities have not identified 19 cockle pickers who drowned at Morecambe Bay in the United Kingdom, 16 families in East China's Fujian Province have reported their relatives missing and fear some may be among the victims.

And among those, 15 of the families are from Fuqing, a city in Fujian Province.

According to an insider, some 30 per cent of able-bodied labourers who once lived in Fuqing are believed to live abroad now.

Why would so many Fuqing residents want to go abroad, even at a huge cost?

An insider, who had worked as a human smuggler, or snakehead as locals say, for 10 years and wanted to be known by the alias Lin Hai, told some of the stories he has witnessed to China Daily.

Lin said the craze to go abroad among people in Fuqing started with some advertisements in the early 1990s.

"Some companies in Fuzhou (capital of Fujian Province) posted advertisements in Fuqing then, recruiting people to work in Japan and claiming that after paying less than 100,000 yuan (US$12,050) people can earn an annual income of 200,000 yuan (US$24,100) there," Lin said.

Several thousand residents in Fuqing went to Japan this way, and some of them came back and became snakeheads themselves to smuggle more locals to Japan, he said.

At that time, almost all stowaways from Fuqing chose Japan as the destination, and prices varied depending on the smuggling route.

He explained that 100,000 yuan (US$12,050) was enough to smuggle a man to Japan by sea, and 150,000 yuan (US$18,000) would be required if stowaways wanted to leave with a false passport.

Since stowaways who arrived in Japan before the year 1995 have earned a lot of money, the number of Fuqing locals leaving for Japan in the next five years has risen to an astonishing level, he said.

At the end of the 1990s, villages in the Fuqing area have seen more and more houses being built and private cars bought.

However, along with the rising population of stowaways from Fuqing in Japan, the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants from Fuqing have also been increasing.

It has attracted attention from the Japanese Government, which has strengthened its crackdown on human smuggling and implemented tighter checkups on illegal immigrants from Fuqing in Japan, Lin said.

As it was becoming more difficult to sneak into Japan, snakeheads started to smuggle people to countries in Europe, especially the United Kingdom.

"More Fuqing locals stowed away for Britain because the country has an aging population which lacks labourers, and there were plenty of opportunities for illegal employment with a wage 10 times higher than that in China or eastern European countries," said another anonymous snakehead, who had organized stowaway groups to the UK.

He said the first batch of stowaways from Fuqing to Britain have earned a fortune there, working in fields ranging from nursing to setting up their own businesses.

"They could earn an annual income of 150,000 yuan (US$18,000) on average then, but with more people going, it is becoming more difficult to find a satisfying job,'' said the insider. "So snakeheads started introducing stowaways to work as gatherers of cockle shells."

People from Fuqing have also been smuggled into France, Germany, the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, Lin said.

The cost of smuggling humans to countries like Germany and France is about 150,000 yuan (US$18,000).

According to Lin, after arriving in countries like Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Italy, stowaways to Germany and France will be carried in containers and hidden in ships or sometimes taking underground routes, bribing border police and even walk to another country.

Lin added the population working as snakeheads in Fuqing now is "huge."

"Many snakeheads belong to one family, and others are friends. They co-operate with each other, take charge of different areas of human smuggling, and get rich by sharing money from the stowaways," he said.

Source: China Daily

Questions?Comments? Click here

China deeply concerned about UK Bay tragedy: FM

Suspects over cockle pickers' deaths bailed in Britain

Cockle picker deaths a crime, not an accident

Why Lai Changxing's appeal to Canadian court rejected? ( 6 Messages)

Japan decides to further cut back economic aid to China ( 30 Messages)

US media urge gov't not to surrender China market to EU ( 2 Messages)

Bird flu detected in US as virus wanes in Asia ( 2 Messages)

Handling Sino-Japan ties in an overall perspective ( 4 Messages)