The Dong-A Ilbo reports that Korea has finally become the “hub” of something.
The Hub of Illegal Chinese Immigration to the West.
According to a recent illegal immigration “guide,” the method most preferred by aspiring illegal Chinese immigrants to the West is to take flights to Europe that first land in Korea. In flight, the guide gives out forged Korean passports, so when they arrive in Europe, they are — in terms of documentation — “Koreans.”
He said, “Of the Chinese hoping to smuggle themselves into the United States, Britain, Australia and elsewhere, many pass through Korea and use forged Korean passports… Korea is becoming a hub of passport forgery and human smuggling.”
This guide, identified as Mr. A, contacted the Dong-A Ilbo after reading an earlier story the paper ran on Korean passport forgery.
According to him, Korean passports are most desired by Chinese and Joseon-jok hoping to smuggle themselves into developed countries to make money. Of the Chinese using forged Korean passports, some 60% want to go to the United States, while the rest prefer Britain and Australia.
According to the police and Foreign Ministry, immigration screenings in English-speaking countries are much tougher for Chinese than Koreans.
The course most preferred by Chinese is to pretend to fly to Cuba. Flights from China to Cuba stop in Korea and France, but on the Korea-France leg, the guides hand out forged Korean passports in the plane. Once they arrive in France, they pretend to be Korean tourists.
After 7—10 days in France, they take the train to Britain, or fly to Mexico, Brazil or some other South American country. From there, they smuggle themselves into the United States by car or ship.
Mr. A said with a Korean passport, it’s quite simple to pass through immigration in France, Britain and Mexico. The Chinese apparently know quite well the power of the Korean passport, and guides receive about US$75,000 per immigrant (includes airfare and other costs). Joseon-jok, on the other hand, only pay US$40,000—$50,000.
He said 60% of the forged Korean passports are purchased from homeless people and the jobless in Korea, while the other 40% are either purchased or stolen from Korean students, backpackers and gyopo traveling overseas.
Police, too, are aware of the problem. Realistically, however, there is little they can do to stop it.
A police official said to arrest a Chinese trying to smuggle himself into a country on a forged Korean passport, the police have to cooperate with the police of three or four other countries based on sure intelligence. Moreover, Korean police do not have the right to investigate on the aircraft of foreign airlines, so it’s hard to aggressively deal with the problem.
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The new E-Passport should put a stop to this nonsense right? But then again, with Korea’s poor internet security, they may hack into the system and the problem might get worse. I had a friend in Vancouver who was asked to translate for 4 Korean people held up in the airport immigration. They were Chinese nationals with forged passports. If they had slipped by (which they almost did), it would have been 4 more “Koreans” illegally residing in Canada.
It is nice being a HUB because of your poor passport security. You have to fight to get in to many countries and everyone checks your passport three times just to be sure.
I was friends with the people over at the South African Consulate in Dubai while I was there. The guy told me that Africans LOVE our passports because we have more access to other countries than most African counties (How bad are they then?). He said they dealt with “South Africans” who were being deported on a daily basis and most of those deportees are not actually South African at all, but hold stolen passports. The few real South Africans are usually being deported because of wrong paperwork.
I have to wonder if the Chinese will effect Korean passports in the same way other Africans effect the SA documents.
A friend married a woman who entered the US illegally. He married her, went through some sort of hoola hoop dance to get her legalized, and then she applied for a social security card. She actually discovered that it was possible to receive multiple social security accounts. She applied for a card, waited for seveal months, and didn’t receive it. She applied again. A few days later she received one, a month or so later the other. She noticed there was a difference of a single vowel in one of her names, and the the account numbers were different. My friend has a bit more integrity than the average bear had her report this. Naturally, in the meantime, she had blabbed this story to all of her friends. So, if the rug of social security is not pulled from under the feet of so many people who will soon be eligible, people with funny names and funny documetation who arrive in the States illegally and manage to get themselves legalized can then get themselves multiple social security accounts, and then cash in on multiple social security checks later on in life. Who are these idiots running the show anyway?
Crap spelling, I know.
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