Word: snakehead
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...Governments and law enforcement agencies don't view the snakehead's activities so favorably. Illegal immigrants have little recourse should the snakehead make off with their deposit, and are vulnerable to Dickensian conditions in the places where they must work long hours to pay off their debt. Knowing the snakehead or his family personally diminishes such risks, and most Fujianese migrants are only one degree removed from the person they will pay to get them abroad. "This isn't like cocaine, where there's one boss in Colombia who directs the whole business," says Frank Pieke, the director...
...odyssey begins in Fujian, where the snakehead's contacts in the local Public Security Bureau help the customer get a Chinese passport. Then it's on to Beijing to apply for a visa to Russia, which easily grants visas to Chinese. The trip to Moscow is the simple part of the journey. The snakehead then takes the person's passport. He says it's for safety - it's harder to deport someone without ID - but, clearly, holding the document gives him power over his clients. From Russia, the Fujianese cross the forested and poorly patrolled Ukrainian and Slovakian borders...
...Passage through Eastern Europe is secured by Ukrainian and Vietnamese gangsters. "These routes used to be for drugs and weapons," says the snakehead, who does not accompany his clients on their journey. "Now they're for Chinese people, too." On average, the snakehead can sneak three people through the Czech Republic a month, but he says a network of traffickers from Sanming brings in a total of 1,400 Fujianese a year, in addition to 600 others from Zhejiang, another coastal Chinese province. "It's a good business, more lucrative than textiles," he says. "But if the people get caught...
...migrants - sometimes 50 at a time - are herded into safe houses where they must wait for the right conditions to continue their trip. Besides packets of instant noodles and a rice cooker, there's not much in the way of furnishings. "Staying there is the toughest part," says the snakehead. "When you're in the house, it's easy to get depressed because you have time to think about your family and the things that might go wrong." He estimates that 10% of people crack. They are taken to an area near the Chinese embassy or consulate and told...
...From the Czech Republic into Germany and beyond - the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Britain - the migrants are switched from minivans to sedans. The Dover disaster alerted police to bigger vehicles, says the snakehead, so it's wise to opt for small cars. The drivers he uses are German, and not a single one, he says, has ever been stopped. The journey takes about two months door-to-door. Once the customer gets to his destination, he calls his family, who then hand over to the snakehead's local contact the smuggling fee - usually a combination of savings and money borrowed...