(a) The Immigration Department and the Customs and Excise Department have continued to identify suspect vessels used in sea-borne smuggling/trafficking operations and to intercept vessels believed to be modified/adapted for use in transporting illegal immigrants.

(b) The Immigration Department exercises full vigilance at all immigration control points. Operations are regularly conducted at the Airport to prevent HKSAR from being used as a transit avenue of illegal migrants using forged or unlawfully acquired third country documents.

(c) In addition to the stringent actions in ensuring the integrity of the land border and sea boundary of the SAR on a day-to-day basis, the Hong Kong Police collect intelligence and investigate suspect organisers and conduct joint investigations with other enforcement agencies as and when appropriate.

(d) There are exchanges of intelligence between different law enforcement agencies, with local consulates, and with foreign as well as Mainland authorities on activities of forgery syndicates, trends and related matters.

(e) We adopt a tough prosecution policy against forged travel document users, couriers and suppliers. The maximum penalty for arranging passage to HKSAR of unauthorised entrants is a fine of $5,000,000 and imprisonment for 14 years.

(a) Since September 2003, the Hong Kong Police and the Immigration Department have been conducting successive joint operations codenamed “Operation SANDSTORM” with a view to combating illegal migration involving forged travel documents. Up to December 2009, a total of 189 persons were arrested in a series of operations. 85 were subsequently convicted with penalties ranging from Community Service Order for 120 hours to imprisonment for 45 months.

(b) In January 2007, through the concerted efforts of the Immigration Department and Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau, four forged Hong Kong identity card workshops and three bogus marriage syndicates were crashed in a 2-day joint operation conducted in Hong Kong and the Mainland respectively. In the operation, 20 syndicate members, including five Hong Kong residents, and 66 other persons were arrested.

(c) In August 2007, with the cooperation of the Philippines Consulate General, the Hong Kong Police arrested two Filipina visitors for trafficking six fellow countrywomen into Hong Kong for the purpose of prostitution. The two Filipina visitors were charged with two counts of “Trafficking in Persons to Hong Kong for the Purpose of Prostitution” and five counts of “Aiding and Abetting Breach of Condition of Stay” and both were subsequently convicted and sentenced to imprisonment terms of 3 years. The Hong Kong Police worked closely with the Presidential Task Force and National Bureau of Investigations of the Philippines Government with a view to neutralizing the Philippines-based trafficking syndicate and formulating medium and long-term strategies to curbing such crime as well as to discussing the safety and reintegration issues upon the victims’ return to the Philippines.

(d) Ever since the implementation of the visa free facilities by the government of Ecuador on 20 June 2008, the Immigration Department has observed a number of Mainland residents routing through Hong Kong for Paris and Amsterdam where they would connect onward flights for Ecuador. Many of them were observed to have suspicious profiles and limited knowledge on their itineraries. In response, the Immigration Department has strengthened the intelligence exchange with the French and Dutch intelligence networks to monitor the situation. Acting on the intelligence provided by the Immigration Department, the Dutch immigration authorities mounted a 4-day operation at the Schiphol International Airport in Amsterdam in late August 2008 during which 125 suspicious Mainland residents heading for Ecuador were screened. As a result, 52 of them were bounced back to the Mainland, as their personal profiles did not satisfy the requirements under the Schengen Borders Code.

(e) In January 2009, a tripartite joint operation codenamed “Snapshots” was conducted by the Immigration Department, the National Police of France and the Royal Marechaussee of the Netherlands simultaneously at Hong Kong International Airport, Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. The purpose was to interdict suspicious travelers in transit in Hong Kong, Paris and Amsterdam to other countries in Europe and North America. Two groups of forged document users arriving from Hong Kong were arrested in Amsterdam for possessing four questionable HKSAR passports and three questionable Japanese passports respectively. As a result, the two document couriers engaged in conveying the forgeries to Amsterdam were convicted in the Netherlands and sentenced to 1 year’s and 2 years’ imprisonment respectively.

(f) In August 2009, police received a referral from the Philippine Consulate General that two recently arrived Filipina victims were deceived to come to Hong Kong to work as prostitutes. A joint operation was conducted with Immigration Department resulting in the arrest of two HK-based Filipina traffickers at a private club where sex services could be arranged. Both traffickers had been charged with “Conspiracy to Traffic in persons to Hong Kong for prostitution” and “Aiding and abetting breach of condition of stay.

(g) In September 2009, a Thai female made a report at a police station alleging being deceived by a female Thai neighbour to come to Hong Kong for prostitution. Police took over the investigation and identified the brothel under the lead of the victim. With the assistance of the Immigration Department and the Royal Thai Consulate, the trafficker was swiftly identified and arrested. The trafficker had been charged with “Trafficking in persons to Hong Kong for prostitution" and "Theft".

(h) In November 2009, a special operation codenamed “Sky League” was conducted by the Immigration Department with the participation of local consulate representatives of Australia, Canada, France, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America as advisers or observers at the Hong Kong International Airport aiming at strengthening cooperation and intelligence sharing with local consulate representatives and interdicting dubious passengers. Six forgery users or escorts were arrested, and four questionable passports, including a HKSAR passport, and a questionable visa were intercepted.

(a) On 11-13 December 2006 and 5-6 June 2008, the Hong Kong Police chaired the Asian Organised Crime Expert Group Meeting held respectively in Bangkok and in Macao. The meetings were organised by Interpol and participated by representatives from the Mainland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. Among various agendas, the meeting recognized the need to address human smuggling/ trafficking activities, in particular smuggling of nationals of the South East Asian countries to Western Europe.

(b) In 2007, representatives from the law enforcement departments attended various overseas conferences/workshops: the Asia-Pacific Regional Migration Integrity Officer Workshop Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand in January 2007; the MigraMacao Conferences held in Macao on ‘Illegal Migration for EU - Perspectives, Preventions and Combating Systems’ in March 2007, on ‘Security Documents’ in May 2007, and on ‘Problems in Migration in the Context of Globalization - Asian Experience’ in November 2007; the 8th Meeting of the Specialist Group on Tracking in Women for Sexual Exploitation held in Lyon, France in May 2007; the Regional Consultative Processes: Insights from the Global Forum on Migration and Development held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in August 2007; the 13th Pacific Rim Immigration Intelligence Conference held in Cancun, Mexico in November 2007; the Seminar on Immigration Control held in Tokyo, Japan in November 2007.

(c) During 2008 and 2009, representatives from the law enforcement departments attended various overseas conferences/workshops: the Bali Process Workshops on ‘People Smuggling: Threat Assessments and Risk Analysis’ held in Kula Lumpur, Malaysia in June 2008; the 14th Pacific Rim Immigration Intelligence Conference held in Sydney, Australia, in November 2008; the Seminar on Immigration Control 2008 held in Tokyo, Japan in December 2008; the 14th Seminar on Document Examination held in Osaka, Japan in February 2009; the Regional Forced Child Labour / Human Trafficking / Child Sex Tourism Training Conference held in Manila, the Philippines in June 2009; the Workshop on Combating Human Trafficking held in Hong Kong in October 2009; the 15th Pacific Rim Immigration Intelligence Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 2009.

Statistics

Year

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

No. of forged travel documents detected territory-wide

3,148

3,549

3,094

2,521

2,334

2,387

1,598

1,423

1,207

No. of forged travel documents detected at Airport

2,196

2,913

2,453

1,717

1,509

1,394

1,002

794

688

Year

Total no. of Mainland Illegal Immigrants Arrested

Increase or decrease compared with the previous year (%)

2001

8,322 (23)

-1.82

2002

5,362 (15)

-35.57

2003

3,809 (10)

-28.96

2004

2,899 (8)

-23.89

2005

2,191 (6)

-24.42

2006

3,173 (9)

+44.81

2007

3,007 (8)

-5.23

2008

2,368 (6)

-21.25

2009

1,890 (5)

-20.19

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Stowaways intercepted by Immigration Department

38

33

28

13

3

4

12

0

7

Illegal immigrants arrested by Customs and Excise Department

36

17

12

4

5

4

4

0

0

Captains prosecuted under S.6(1) of the Immigration Ordinance for not furnishing list of crews and passengers to Immigration Department

7

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Crews of ships arrested for carrying unauthorized entrants and captains/owners arrested for carrying illegal immigrants into Hong Kong

50

33

14

1

0

0

0

0

0