75 Stowaways Caught in Northeastern Port

Frontier police in Dalian, a port city in northeast China, has cracked a human trafficking gang and caught 75 stowaways.

The "snakeheads" or human smugglers had stowaways from northeastern Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces at the Dalian port on July 15, and the 75 boarded a small wooden fish boat at 1:00 am on July 20, the police have found.

When the police stopped the boat on July 25, all of the 75 on board were crowded in a less than ten-sq-m compartment. They had not eaten for three days.

All of them would pay the snakeheads 40,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan (about 4,800 US dollars to 7,200 US dollars) once they got to the Republic of Korea.

Another 144 stowaways were caught in three recent cases on July 18, 19 and 21, all trying to get to the Republic of Korea.



People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/