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Thursday, April 6, 2006
22 stowaways nabbed at Port of Seattle
Chinese found in good health after 2-week trip in container
Twenty-two Chinese stowaways were almost home free. They had broken out of a 40-foot cargo container -- their squalid hiding place -- and appeared to be in good health after their two-week journey across the Pacific.
All that separated them from a new life in America was a chain-link fence at the Port of Seattle. It was 1 a.m. Wednesday, and there was cover of darkness.
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 | Grant M. Haller / P-I | |
| Investigators look for clues Wednesday near the cargo container that carried 22 stowaways from China to Seattle on the MV Rotterdam. | ||
But their plan failed: Nobody picked them up, and they were spotted by a security guard making her rounds at Terminal 18 on Harbor Island. The unarmed guard rounded them up and summoned Port of Seattle Police and federal authorities, who took them into custody, foiling a human smuggling operation.
News of the incident spread from coast to coast, prompting port officials and politicians to call for further security measures. The ease with which the detainees made it into this country prompted warnings of "dirty bombs" reaching the Seattle waterfront.
"By using cargo containers, terrorists can deliver a deadly one-two punch to our country," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., warned at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
"The first punch would create an untold number of American casualties," Murray said. "The second punch would bring our economy to a halt. Cargo containers carry the building blocks of our economy, but they can also carry the deadly tools of a terror attack. Today, we are not doing enough to keep America safe."
Mic Dinsmore, chief executive officer of the Port of Seattle, told the same committee: "It has been almost five years since the attacks of 9/11, and I must say that I still do not sleep well knowing all the vulnerabilities in our port security system."
The incident Wednesday was the first known instance of human smuggling through the Port of Seattle in more than six years.
In January 2000, authorities found 37 stowaways in two cargo containers aboard ships docked at Harbor Island. Three had died from dehydration after suffering seasickness. A fourth died later.
The scene authorities discovered this time was far less dire. The 18 men and four women appeared to be in their 20s and 30s and in good physical condition, federal authorities said. They arrived aboard a ship from Shanghai -- China Shipping Line's MV Rotterdam.
The private security guard who first saw the group initially assumed they were part of a ship's crew, said Noel Channon, the guard's supervisor.
"Many ships come in, and their crew members wander around the terminal though they are not supposed to -- they are supposed to call for a bus" to the terminal gate, he said. There they could catch a cab to downtown Seattle to shop, eat, and take advantage of life on land.
But early Wednesday, the guard was on patrol when she saw three people in a cluster become six, swelling more and more until there were 22.
"One took off running," Channon said. "That was a red flag."
The stowaways had used a crowbar and a pry bar to open the container's steel doors only to find they were 10 feet in the air -- stacked atop another container.
"You can imagine, I think, 15 days in a container from China on a boat, getting unloaded by these giant machines, dropped on a cart, swung around by a top-picker ..." said Channon. "It was probably pretty well disorienting."
Customs and Border Protection officers and Port of Seattle police took the 22 into custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents scoured the container for evidence and questioned the stowaways with the help of a Mandarin translator.
The stowaways were in "remarkably good health," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the immigration and customs agency's Seattle office.
Agents are now focused on identifying the smugglers -- known in China as "snakeheads." Winchell said Wednesday that the part of China the stowaways came from hadn't been confirmed, but the detainees have been cooperating.
For decades, migrants have left the coastal provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong to earn U.S. dollars in an underground economy.
It is possible the Seattle-bound stowaways expected immigration bills pending in Congress to grant them amnesty, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian American studies at Hunter College in New York.
In the past, he said, snakeheads have spread rumors that the United States would give amnesty to illegal newcomers.
"What happened in Seattle was that something went wrong," said Ko-Lin Chin, a Rutgers University professor and expert on human cargo. "There should be someone there to help them. Someone has to pick them up."
Kwong said a migrant who arrives by ship typically pays under $30,000, and one who arrives by airplane pays a fee starting at $55,000. But smuggling fees can go up to $70,000, said Chin.
Migrants typically will give a smuggler a down payment of $1,000 to $2,000. The remainder is made up from loans from relatives and friends, said Chin.
Upon arrival in the United States, someone hired by a smuggler typically meets them and takes them to "safe" houses. From there, and especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that tightened airport security, smugglers will move the people by automobile to New York City.
All throughout the voyage, the migrants are at the mercy of smugglers, debt collectors and their enforcers. Smugglers have tortured migrants, kept them locked up and raped women.
It's unclear where the journey of the Chinese nationals captured in Seattle began.
They may have been locked in the container in Shanghai before it was loaded aboard the Liberian-flagged Rotterdam. The ship left Hong Kong on March 19 and sailed to Shanghai. It picked up cargo and left March 23.
After stops to take on cargo in Ningbo, China, and Pusan, South Korea, the vessel left for Seattle. It arrived at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The container, which was supposed to be filled with plastic flowers, was the fifth in a stack lashed to the Rotterdam's deck. It would have swayed in wide arcs as the vessel sailed. The men and women locked inside would have faced the stench of human waste with only a few holes punched in the walls for ventilation.
But the group was well-equipped for their two weeks of imprisonment, said Mike Milne, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. They had a good supply of food and water, and there was a makeshift toilet with curtains for a semblance of privacy. There were rubber trash cans to store the waste, batteries to run lights and an electric saw to cut their way out if necessary.
Winchell, the special agent in charge, said the stowaways were to be taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, where they are expected to be deported.
While criminal charges aren't likely, some stowaways could be held as material witnesses in efforts to crack the smuggling ring and make arrests.
The stowaways could request asylum. If any have relatives in this country, they could also petition to stay here.
The container in question had been flagged for a special examination, according to Milne.
One Harbor Island source said it was flagged because the sender was a first-time shipper. Winchell and Milne declined to identify the shipper of the container, or why it was flagged.
Had the people inside not gotten out in the middle of the night, they would have been spotted inside the container by X-ray. "They would have been caught one way or another," Winchell said.
SMUGGLING CASES
Hundreds of people being smuggled from China have been caught at West Coast ports since 1999. A post-9/11 crackdown has reduced the number of documented incidents, authorities said. The cases include:
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