NYK penalized in Chinese stowaway incident
Twenty-nine Chinese nationals who attempted to sneak into the United States hidden in two ocean containers were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Port of Los Angeles’ Yusen Container Terminal April 4.
The agency also said it has fined NYK Lines $58,000 for failing to detain the stowaways as required by immigration law.
The stowaways were detected wandering around the terminal by private security guards, who contacted port police, said Michael Fleming, a spokesman for the CBP office at the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach. CBP officers conducted the actual roundup.
Thirty-one individuals were smuggled in the container and two are still at large, Fleming said, adding they were not considered dangerous.
P&O Nedlloyd and Los Angeles-based Hecny Transportation Inc. were each fined $5,000 for providing inaccurate or incomplete cargo descriptions in their roles as non-vessel operating common carriers arranging the container shipment. Under CBP’s 24-hour rule for prefiling cargo manifests, carriers and consolidators are subject to a $5,000 penalty for first-time invalid cargo descriptions and $10,000 for subsequent violations.
CBP said the container had been modified to help the stowaways escape and included pre-cut doors that were bolted into place from the inside.
The illegal migrants arrived aboard the 'NYK Artemis,' a Panamanian-registered vessel whose last port of call was Hong Kong, according to a newsletter published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Department of Homeland Security agency that is investigating the illegal immigration operation with help from Chinese authorities. Prior to that, the vessel made stops in the Chinese ports of Xiamen and Shekou to take on cargo.
The failed smuggling incident resembles one in January in which 32 Chinese stowaways were caught in Los Angeles after a crane operator noticed them fleeing two separate containers. That incident also involved NYK Line, Fleming said.
The ability of smugglers to get their human cargo to U.S. shores highlights the challenge CBP faces in getting more complete and accurate commercial data about the contents of the cargo that is plugged into automated targeting systems to select suspicious boxes for inspection.
The smugglers used dummy manifests indicating the cargo inside the containers was machinery, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee expressed concern during Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s confirmation hearing in February about the security implications of the earlier incident.
“If the smugglers of the illegal aliens know to use the container system, then surely al Qaeda has identified that as a possible means of smuggling an al Qaeda cell into our country. And despite all the high-tech cameras and other surveillance techniques and the department screening programs, none of those caught these illegal Chinese citizens. It was, in fact, an alert crane operator,” Collins said.
The 29 Chinese nationals remain in custody, but no arrests have been made, Kice said.
ICE aggressively goes after human smuggling because of the potential threat to security and to the lives of the migrants, she said.
“They are basically hitching a ride in what amounts to a metal coffin,” Kice said.
Three illegal aliens were found dead inside a container that arrived at the Port of Seattle in 2000 after they were stricken with sea sickness during high seas and got dehydrated vomiting.
As many as 20 migrants are often crammed into unventilated, humid boxes with a limited amount of water and food supplies, receptacles for human waste and car batteries to power small portable fans.
“It’s not Carnival Cruise Lines,” Kice said.
Smuggling rings charge $30,000 to $60,000 per head, which migrants spend years trying to pay off after finding work in the United States. In many cases, the illegal migrants are transshipped in their containers to inland destinations via rail, further prolonging their journey under harsh conditions.