Gang held in human smuggling

An alleged human trafficking gang, all insiders at the Capital International Airport, will be put on trial in Beijing on charges of attempting to smuggle 26 Chinese overseas between 2006 and 2007.

Led by a 25-year-old airport security worker, the 12-man group was uncovered on Dec 12 when customs officers stopped four stowaways from Fujian province while they tried to board an Air China flight bound for Vancouver, the Beijing Times reported on Friday.

The group also kept close contact with human traffickers in Fujian and Hong Kong and gained hundreds of thousands of yuan for each successful attempt, the newspaper said.