Police arrest a man suspected of smuggling immigrants to Germany in this Sept. 3, 2015 photo. (Photo : Getty Images)
Authorities have arrested 22 people and seized more than 35,000 forged visas in a crackdown of a human smuggling ring in southern China that had reportedly helped 3,200 Chinese enter North and South America illegally, according to a report from the Guangzhou Daily newspaper.
Police in Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, confiscated 270 forged official seals and froze more than 11 million yuan ($1.7 million) linked to the gang, which have earned 220 million yuan through the scheme, the report said.
The ring, based in Guangdong and eastern China's Fujian Province, was caught as part of China's largest anti-human smuggling campaign in the previous decade.
"The crackdown comes at the right time to destroy the ring's development, since the kingpin surnamed Li says he planned to monopolize the smuggling business in the Americas," said a police officer using the alias Luo Wei.
According to police, Li specialized in forging documents and ran a travel firm in southern China's Shenzhen Province to cover his smuggling operations.
Over 70 percent of the people smuggled into the Americas were young men in their 20s, who wanted to work and earn money there "just like their parents or grandparents going abroad in this way," said an officer who refused to be named.
Jiangmen is the place of origin of many Chinese living abroad, as more than 3 million, mainly in North and Central America, were born in the city.
The crackdown was launched after Shenzhen border control officials detained 12 people in Jiangmen and a suspected gang member for possessing counterfeit visas for an unnamed South American country.
As of July, more than 19 members of the smuggling ring have been arrested by police in Jiangmen, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing.
