Chinese Peasants Kidnaped on Arrival at Kennedy Airport
Seven Chinese peasants who had just arrived in the United States to study organic farming were kidnaped at Kennedy Airport by screaming Asian men who forced them into a car and sped off, authorities said today.
The peasants were among a group of 16 Chinese nationals from a 19-hour flight to New York from Beijing with a stop in San Francisco aboard Air China Flight 981.
The group was met at the airport by Molly Aitken, president of the World Energy Foundation based in Athol, Mass., which is sponsoring the farming program.
At the arrivals terminal, Aitken said she watched in horror as seven of the peasants were confronted by three or four men, who screamed as they hustled the confused Chinese into a car.
Aitken said she had been warned by a U.S. consular official in China that Chinese are often abducted and forced to work as slave labor in New York’s Chinatown, but a law enforcement official at JFK expressed skepticism.
“It’s never happened here before,” Port Authority Detective Sgt. Herman McAuley said.
McAuley said local police and the FBI are treating the incident as a kidnaping.
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