| MadMax |
Posted
on 05-Feb-03 04:19 PM
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan are being smuggled from mainland China to Hong Kong inside suitcases, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
Curled up in large suitcases, they are wheeled across the Lowu border point between Hong Kong and mainland China by smugglers who are paid HK$500 (US$64) for each trip.
These Indian and Pakistani nationals arrive in mainland China on tourist visas and pay between US$250 and US$300 to be smuggled to Hong Kong, usually during peak hours when customs officers are less likely to examine luggage, the newspaper said.
A syndicate, which has up to six smugglers on hand on any given day with valid visas to enter Hong Kong, has been conducting the smuggling operation since mid-2001, it quoted a source as saying.
These "pilots" wheel the immigrants through the checkpoint in large, cloth suitcases which let in air to prevent suffocation.
Comment from Hong Kong police was not immediately available.
Illegal immigrants from China, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Indian subcontinent abound in Hong Kong where they hope to make a living and send much-needed cash home.
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| Hamjayega |
Posted
on 05-Feb-03 10:38 PM
Talking about illegal immigrants I alwayz thought it the chinese who went all over the world stuffed in metal container in cargo ships. Sometimes they were there upto more am month and a half before reaching their destination. Many die on their way and the few who survive vanish into the famouse "China towns" which is there in every country.
Indian and Pakistani illegal immigrants in China is definately something new, that too being smuggled in suitcase to HK, the suitcases must be really large as an averange Indian and Pakistani are pretty tall. What are these Indians n Pakistanis doing in mainland China anyway?? If they hv a valid tourist VISA then they are not illegal immigrants officially, they hv the right to stay as long as their VISA is valid. However they are not allowed to work. But then wot kind of work will these ppl get in China??If they are working as Labours then China already has the cheapest labor in the world, half of the chinese population in the villages are willing to work for less than a dollar per day. If they are bizman or even professionals then why travel in suitcases??
On the otherhand, Japan, Korea and Taiwan do hv a lot of illegal imigrants from the Indian subcontinant with the Bangladeshiz being the highest. But in this case the Govts of these respective countries tacitly encourage illegal immigrants to work in their countries as cheap labourers without taking any kinda responsibility for their well being.
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