9 Arraigned on Charges of Smuggling 118 Immigrants : Raid: The Chinese men and women were found in a Garden Grove residence after a sting operation by the INS.

Nine people suspected of being part of a sophisticated illegal immigrant-smuggling ring were arraigned Thursday in federal court on charges of bringing to Southern California 118 Chinese men and women who were discovered in a Garden Grove home.

The suspects, eight men and a woman, are among 13 people suspected of participating in what immigration authorities have called a well-organized and heavily financed smuggling ring that was broken with the arrests in Garden Grove and Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

Authorities said that Garden Grove served as a way station for the immigrants, who apparently were headed for jobs in New York. They arrived off the coast of Los Angeles aboard a 200-foot fishing trawler, made it to San Pedro on board an excursion vessel and then were taken to Orange County.

In an appearance before U.S. District Magistrate John R. Kronenberg in Los Angeles, seven of the defendants were ordered held without bail while two others, Chen Kanghong, 28, and the only woman, Chen Ok-son, were granted bail in the amounts of $50,000 and $150,000 respectively. All were charged with transporting and harboring illegal immigrants.

Authorities said all of the male suspects were from Fujian province in China, also the home of the 118 illegal immigrants. The woman suspect is a naturalized American citizen from Seoul, South Korea, authorities said.

Officials said two other defendants, picked up at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, were charged Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn. No charges have been brought against two more suspects--a male juvenile and a male adult arrested during the California operations, according to Jim Hayes, assistant district director of the anti-smuggling branch of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles.

Hayes said the suspects, now in the custody of the U.S. marshal’s office, will be brought before a federal grand jury within 30 days.

Several defense attorneys at the hearing maintained that their clients were not part of the smuggling ring but were illegal immigrants themselves, paying thousands of dollars to be taken from China to New York .

INS agents “swept up a lot of people. Some may be guilty, some may not be guilty,” said Alan Rubin, an attorney for one of the defendants. “Just being there at the scene of a crime doesn’t make you guilty.”

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Zweiback said that INS agents identified each defendant as an active participant in the smuggling operation. He went on to identify defendants Chen Ok-son, 39, who listed a New Jersey residence, and her husband, Chen Chongbiao, 26, as the ringleaders.

All the suspects are charged with harboring and transporting illegal immigrants into the country, a charge that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The other suspects are: Chen Pingxae, 28; Chen Jiazhun, 18; Chen Huarong, 32; Chen Konggian, 20; Chen Guixae, 19, and Guo Cheng, 22. .

INS agents arrested the group about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday when they stormed the home at 9770 Crosby Ave. in Garden Grove. Robert Moschorak, associate regional commissioner for INS operations, said the temperature in the closed-up house was stifling, and the air conditioner was not on at the time.

The Chinese, most of them laborers in their own country, were aboard the trawler until they reached a point about 320 miles off the California coast, where they transferred onto an excursion vessel bound for San Pedro. As it turned out, that vessel was part of an undercover INS sting operation.

Hayes said the Chinese have refused to provide authorities with their backgrounds, how they left China, who made travel arrangements or their course through the Pacific. He added that several appeared to have paid as much as $10,000 up front, and that the final cost could reach as high as $30,000 each.

Although he would not cite specifics because of the pending case, Moschorak said evidence indicated that the group was bound for the East Coast. “The time they were spending in California was only in transit,” he said. “Their goal was to move on to New York.”

Estimates on the number of people covertly entering the country varies widely, ranging from 2 million to 12 million annually. Charlie Troy, New York district INS spokesman, said Chinese immigrants that find their way to New York City invariably end up in Chinatown in lower Manhattan.

“There, they find a low-paying job at a restaurant or in the garment industry,” Troy said. “They often will be stuck there, virtual prisoners of their inability to speak English. Because they can’t operate in the day-to-day activities (of an English-speaking society), they don’t leave Chinatown.”

Times staff writer Ashley Dunn contributed to this report from Los Angeles.