Illegal migrants paid US $45,000 to enter Canada: report

[Twoller]

This from Canada's National Post online:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2120266

Illegal migrants paid US $45,000 to enter Canada: report
Fabian Dawson, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, October 19, 2009

VANCOUVER -- The 76 illegal migrants who were intercepted on a rusting ship off the west coast of Vancouver paid up to US$45,000 each for a new life in Canada, one of their compatriots has claimed.

The suspected asylum seekers, who are being held in a Vancouver jail pending refugee claims, are believed to be one of four groups of Sri Lankans in four ships operated by human smugglers.

Australian authorities said the international human smuggling operation is linked to the notorious Abraham Lauhenapessy, known as Captain Bram, who has spent the last decade smuggling Sri Lankans, particularly Tamils.

The illegal migrants reportedly paid up to US$45,000 for the Canadian option, which involved the cross-Pacific journey on the Ocean Lady that was intercepted and towed to Victoria last Sunday.

The other vessel with 254 Tamils aboard is currently tied at a wharf in West Java, Indonesia.

....


Lauhenapessy, an Ambonese with strong links to a criminal network at Jakarta's main port, had been a top-priority target for Australian Federal Police for more than five years.

After eluding a number of elaborate "sting" operations by Australian and Indonesian police, including one in Cambodia in 2001, Lauhenapessy was eventually arrested in Jakarta in June 2007 following a long-term joint operation between the Australian Federal Police and Indonesian police.

An Indonesian court sentenced Lauhenapessy to two years in jail and fined him the equivalent of about $3,000 US in December 2007 on charges of hiding, protecting, harbouring or providing a livelihood to people known to have entered Indonesia illegally.

The charges related to the arrival of 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers in international waters off Australia in early 2007.

Vancouver Province

The rest of the article here.