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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 26, 2002

China's Biggest Snakehead Put on Trial

The Intermediate Court of Nanjing held a hearing on the "Gold Mine" vessel stowaway case November 25, in which 42 suspects were put on trial. The 150-member human smuggling gang, since 1998, organized over 700 stowaways in 38 batches along 19 ports of 10 coastal cities of the nation, with nearly 400 people stealthily shipped out of China.


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China's Biggest Snakehead Put on Trial
The Intermediate Court of Nanjing held a hearing on the "Gold Mine" vessel stowaway case November 25, in which 42 suspects were put on trial.

The 150-member human smuggling gang is the biggest ever cracked by security departments, which, since 1998, organized over 700 stowaways in 38 batches along 19 ports of 10 coastal cities of the nation, with nearly 400 people stealthily shipped out of China. Driven by desire for money, bosses of six ship companies mobilized 10 oceangoing freighters to traffick stowaways.

Ten of the 42 suspects were charged with the crime of organizing other persons to cross the national boundary stealthily, and Chen Wenshu, a jobless 38-year-old from Fujian, was suspected head of the gang. From 1998 to 2000 he led other eight people in organizing and trafficking over hundred people across the border through illegal means such as building secret cabins and counterfeiting seaman's identity cards.

Meanwhile, the other 32 suspects were charged with the crime of trafficking other persons to secretly cross the border. Two of them were found chiefs of a ship company and the other 30 all captains and crew of the ocean freighter involved in the case.

The criminal organization was first discovered in the "Gold Mine" case. On November 25, 2000, the Japanese security seized 17 stowaways from Fujian at the "Gold Mine" vessel, which set out from Xianmen and bound for Japan's Marugame port. Last January, Japanese court sentenced all the 8 crew of "Gold Mine" caught and confiscated the vessel.

By PD Online Staff Li Heng


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