Four "Snakeheads" Caught in ChongqingBorder police in southwest China's Chongqing City arrested four stowaway agents known as "snakeheads" Monday and a number of stowaways at the city's Jiangbei International Airport.The four snakeheads, pretending to be relatives of high-ranking officials, tried in vain to bribe the border police and build an "illegal border crossing to Europe" at the airport, police sources said. Chongqing City opened an air route to Munich, Germany, in June this year and it is the only air route to Europe in the western part of China. Zhou Xiaoyi, chief of staff of Chongqing Border Security Police Bureau, said after the new air route became operational some snakeheads tried to bribe border police and organize stowaways to Europe. Four days ago, the four snakeheads made phone calls to Chongqing border police claiming to be relatives of high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Public Security and a military area command of the People's Liberation Army. They promised to pay 10 times the amount of the border policeman's salary when each stowaway smoothly reached Munich and they expected to build up a long-term relationship with the border police. The border policy pretended to agree with the idea in an effort to catch all the members of the stowaway group. Later, plainclothes police officers at the airport caught the four snakeheads. So far, Chongqing has opened air routes to Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and some other countries and the city's border police have cracked seven stowaway cases involving 40 stowaways in recent two years. |
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