INS Raid Breaks Ring Smuggling Immigrants : Investigation: 118 Chinese found in Garden Grove home. In all, 139 taken into custody at four locations, including 13 smuggler suspects.

A well-organized, heavily financed smuggling ring that transported Chinese to Southern California by ship was dismantled after federal authorities raided a Garden Grove house and found 118 illegal immigrants inside, officials said Wednesday.

The Chinese had arrived on a 200-foot fishing trawler 320 miles off the California coast and were brought into San Pedro on board an excursion vessel that was playing a role in the five-week undercover operation mounted by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The illegal immigrants were believed to be bound for jobs in New York, where they would serve as indentured servants to pay off the smugglers before attaining their freedom, officials said.

In all, 139 people were taken into custody Tuesday night in four separate locations, including 13 people described as smuggling suspects. In addition to the Garden Grove raid, INS agents simultaneously arrested 12 people at Los Angeles International Airport, eight people as they were deplaning at New York’s Kennedy Airport, and one at a motel near the rented Garden Grove home.

The Chinese, some of whom had already paid smugglers as much as $10,000 to be brought to the United States--were being held in INS detention facilities and face deportation proceedings that could return them to the People’s Republic of China, officials said.

Robert M. Moschorak, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, called the operation “one of the most significant over-the-ocean smuggling operations we have ever seen.” Most people who illegally enter the United States come across the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This case clearly shows that illegal alien trafficking is not limited to Latin America, but is an extremely serious worldwide problem, particularly involving Chinese,” INS Commissioner Gene McNary said.

Undercover INS operatives collected $48,000 from smugglers to pay for the services of passenger boat, fuel and food. That sum indicates the size and sophistication of the smuggling ring, officials said. Possible ties to organized crime were being investigated, Moschorak said.

“We believe this is not the first time this has happened. They seem to know what they were doing,” Moschorak said in a Los Angeles press conference. “They were very well organized. They had the transportation down pat.”

It is not yet clear, he added, whether those arrested include the “upper echelon” of the smuggling ring, which is believed to be based in New York. The continuing investigation could lead to more arrests, officials said.

When INS agents, backed up by the Garden Grove police, raided the three-bedroom, two-bath home in the 9700 block of Crosby Drive at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, they found rooms barren of furniture and crowded with people that apparently were being sustained on a diet of rice, officials said. A sign on a wall explained in Mandarin the house rules--one of which forbade them from going outside.

The rules--abetted by “enforcers” who intimidated the illegal immigrants with verbal threats--were apparently effective, officials said. Residents of the middle-class, ethnically mixed neighborhood that borders an Asian commercial district on Garden Grove Boulevard said they were astounded that so many people had entered the house without causing a stir.

Teresa Zand, who lives across the street, said her husband witnessed the raid. “My husband couldn’t believe there were that many people in the house,” she said.

“I never heard anything,” said a neighbor who requested anonymity. “You cannot hear a sound.”

A next-door neighbor said Wednesday that he noticed the hubbub at the home Tuesday night but he assumed it to be a party.

Another neighbor, Christina Chung, said that new tenants had moved into the single-story tract house on Labor Day, but that she never saw more than four men at the residence.

“Last night we were real surprised” when INS agents herded scores of suspected illegal immigrants from the house, Chung said.

The immigrants, described as laborers from Fukien province in China, apparently were en route to jobs in the New York area. Some told INS investigators they were charged $30,000 to be taken to the United States and would work until they paid off their debt. Jim Hayes, INS assistant district director of anti-smuggling operations, said it is not unusual for such people to function as indentured servants.

The 13 smuggling suspects--12 adults and one juvenile--were described by authorities as Chinese nationals, except for one naturalized Chinese-American and one Korean national. If convicted, they face maximum sentences of five years and $250,000 fines for each person who was smuggled in.

Officials said it is unclear where the Chinese--all men except for five women--boarded the fishing trawler.

The U.S. Coast Guard provided surveillance and could have seized the vessel in international waters on the grounds that it was engaged in operations violating U.S. law, Moschorak said. INS officials decided against seizing the ship because they feared that ringleaders would be alerted and evade arrest.

Now, he added, “if it’s anyway possible, we’re going to seize that ship.”