Chinese Organized Crime and Illegal Alien Trafficking: Humans as a Commodity

he small Panamanian vessel Golden Venture ran aground in New York HarT bor in June 1993, revealing a cargo of almost 300 Chinese illegal immigrants. Malnourished and mistreated, this human freight had been waiting to be smuggled on shore-a privilege for which each passenger had paid between $15,000 and $35,000. As the ship crashed against the beach, ten of the immigrants drowned while trying to swim to safety.' They died thousands of dollars in debt, only steps away from the promised land. Up to 100,000 Chinese aliens are smuggled into the United States each year. Even if caught, many citizens of the People's Republic of China (PRC) can avoid deportation under a presidential executive order that grants asylum from birthcontrol persecution, Beijing's one-child-per-family policy.2 American investigators and immigration officials have therefore begun to look beyond this loophole and are focusing on the larger menace working its way into U.S. cities: Chinese transnational criminal organizations. Asian crime gangs have become formidable international actors-and international threats. These societies control the multibillion-dollar illegal economies of heroin trafficking, prostitution, gambling, extortion, money laundering, and alien smuggling-both in Asia and increasingly in the West. Economic difficulties within China compel unemployed, frustrated people to buy into the myth of a better life in the West. As poverty continues to deliver eager 6migr6s into the hands of professional smugglers or snakeheads, Western nations find themselves unprepared to fight the elusive and impenetrable Chinese triads.