Illegal Immigrants Crash New York City Onboard Luxury Liner

We all know that the Statue of Liberty is a lady who welcomes all who pass by her gleaming grace, but even Lady Liberty might have given a stone double take if she had seen the nine Chinese immigrants illegally on board the luxury liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, as they disembarked in New York harbor.

This was a scam perpetrated by a Malaysian man named Fatt Kwee Wong, who now faces smuggling charges. When cornered by customs officials, he admitted that he had been paid $3,500 by each of the nine immigrants (five women, four men) to sneak them into the United States.

And sneak them he did, in a style that was grand enough to draw significant attention. Customs officials were immediately suspicious and when they asked for passports, the nine pulled out fake ones from Japan, but not one of them spoke the language.

“We haven’t really seen this in the past because of course it is expensive. It’s quite an investment just to get on this ship… If they feel we’d be less likely to suspect a high-end ship as opposed to one of the fly-by-night cruise liners, they’d use that route,” said John Saleh, customs official.

This type of incident is unprecedented and authorities are not totally sure how they managed to pull it off. The nine Chinese immigrants boarded the Cunard Line luxury ship in Dubai as paying passengers. The floating lavish hotel features 14 decks with ornate dining rooms, ballrooms, theaters and even a planetarium.

As of this writing, the nine Chinese immigrants are awaiting deportation, and the accused smuggler is being held in federal custody and won’t be booking any illegal luxury cruises for some time to come.

(Link)

By MDeeDubroff on 01-06-2011