Human smuggler suspects detained in China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-06 22:00

BEIJING -- Chinese police have detained two suspects who had allegedly attempted to smuggle about 300 youngsters to Costa Rica since last May, a spokesman with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said.

Diplomats of the Costa Rican embassy in Beijing told local police last December that they had received about 300 visa applications since last May, and the applicants -- all from south China's Guangdong Province and mostly youngsters -- all claimed that they hoped to reunite with their parents who had settled down in Costa Rica, the spokesman said.

The embassy officials suspected that the ID cards and birth certificates of the applicants were forged, he said.

Beijing police then went to the southern province and launched an investigation into the case together with the Guangdong counterparts.

During the investigation, police officers found the parents of the applicants were all living in China and their application documents were all fabricated. Police concluded that it was an organized human smuggling case, the spokesman said.

According to different clues, police narrowed down their list of suspected human traffickers to 43-year-old Cen Shuiman and 36-year-old Zheng Anqiang, both from Guangdong's Enping City.

Cen was detained on February 25 in Enping and police also confiscated a number of forged visa application documents and an account book recording the fees they had asked from the applicants.

Zheng was detained a month later in another city of Qingyuan.

The two men confessed that they had colluded with "snake-heads" overseas to attempt to smuggle youngsters to Costa Rica using fake application documents, the spokesman said.

The case is being further investigated, he added.