Seven Chinese went on trial yesterday in Beijing accused of
masterminding efforts to smuggle 66 people to the Republic of Korea
(ROK) last March.
Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court heard the stowaways were
told to pose as fans heading to the Korean Peninsula for the 2002
World Cup for football.
The case has rocked the tourism industry and has been billed as the
largest disappearance of Chinese in the ROK since 1998. That was
the year travel to the ROK was authorized for Chinese citizens by
national travel chiefs.
No
verdict was reached by the court yesterday in the case.
According to the bill of indictment by the No 2 Branch of the
Beijing People's Procuratorate, the seven defendants made profits
of more than 1 million yuan (US$120,800) from the people smuggling
operation.
The 66 Chinese citizens landed at Incheon, a port in northwest ROK,
on a flight from the Beijing Capital International Airport.
A
total of 23 people have subsequently been detained and sent back to
China by ROK police. The remainder are still at large, said public
prosecutor Liu Gang.
According to ROK police, most of the 28 men and 15 women are aged
in their 30s and are workers holding fake passports.
The indictment accused 30-year-old Liu Jie, one of the seven
defendants, of illegally engraving the seals of some educational
organizations such as the Tianjin Experimental Primary School and
Yibin Lujia Kindergarten on to forged occupation certificates for
the 66 people.
Liu and the co-accused then made up a company to provide financial
guarantees to the China Youth Travel Service (CYTS), the indictment
stated.
Liu Jie pleaded guilty to all charges except that of illegally
engraving seals.
The seven defendants were detained in March last year on suspicion
of planning to flee the country and were formally arrested the
following month.
The main suspect, Liu Jie, was jailed for four years in 1992 for
intentional homicide, according to the indictment.
Acting as intermediary organization in the incident last year, CYTS
has suffered economic losses and the ramifications of the case
continue today.
The company was forbidden from conducting tourism services to ROK
for six months.
At
the same time, two other Chinese travel services received the same
punishment for a shorter period.
"In fact, our company continued to organize travel to South Korea
through cooperation with other tourism organizations during the
World Cup period last year," said a CYTS senior manager, who
declined to be identified.
He
admitted business continues to be affected by the accident despite
fruitful efforts to resume the cross-border trip to ROK in
September.
The manager refused to reveal exactly the size of the losses from
the incident.
Sources with the National Tourism Administration said tourism
organizations were under great pressure as a travel credit
supervision system has yet to be established.
(China Daily February 12, 2003)