China nabs most wanted 'snakehead'

Huge demand in China for passage to other countries has generated a thriving human smuggling trade

BEIJING, China -- Chinese police say they have arrested their "most wanted" human trafficker, a gang leader believed to be responsible for smuggling hundreds of illegal emigrants last year.

Acting on a tip-off, police in East China's Fujian province arrested a Fuqing city resident surnamed Wang with nine would-be stowaways, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.

Wang, identified only by his last name, headed their list of the 10 most wanted people smugglers, who are known as snakeheads, Chinese police said.

Police said Wang's gang had run four operations last year involving 396 stowaways, according to Xinhua.

Wang was also behind a botched operation in January to smuggle 60 people into Japan via Dalian in Northeast China, the official China Daily newspaper reported.

Huge demand within China for passage to other countries has generated a thriving human smuggling trade, with the coastal province of Fujian a hub of Chinese migration.

Slaves or prostitution

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In recent years, criminal gangs charging as much as $60,000 for the trip have smuggled tens of thousands of Chinese overseas, often in foul and unseaworthy ships, authorities have said.

People pay big fees to leave China for Japan, Canada, Australia and the United States, many in daring expeditions that lead to disaster.

The China Daily last year quoted statistics from the Public Security Ministry saying that more than 9,000 Chinese would-be illegal immigrants had been captured in some 1,900 cases in 1999 alone.

Many illegal migrants are made to work long hours in slave-shop conditions in factories or restaurants, or forced into prostitution, when they arrive to pay off the smugglers.

For years, Chinese efforts to stem the lucrative trade were often ineffective.

But authorities began cracking down after 58 illegal Chinese immigrants suffocated to death while being smuggled to Dover, England, in the back of a tomato truck, 18 months ago.