2nd Van Sought in Smuggling of Chinese Immigrants : Investigation: Authorities say two vehicles were used to transport 40 men to shopping center where they were abandoned. Twenty-six await deportation hearings.

Immigration officials said Tuesday that they were looking for a second van that helped transport a group of Chinese immigrants to a shopping center over the weekend as part of a smuggling operation.

Authorities said two vans carrying about 40 people drove from a house in Orange County on Sunday to a Huntington Beach shopping center, where police detained 26 men after they were dropped off and abandoned.

Officials with the Immigration and Naturalization Service held the men, aged 16 to 41, on bail of $10,000 each and interviewed them in preparation for deportation hearings.

INS officials said it was unclear what happened to the other immigrants--as many as 14--or the vans, which quickly sped off.

INS officials said they have not gotten any reports on the group’s whereabouts, except for two calls from Laguna Beach residents who thought they spotted some of the men late Monday night and again Tuesday afternoon. Police were dispatched to the Crescent Bay area both times and found groups of tourists.

“I hope we don’t get into a situation here where people are calling at every sighting of Asians saying they think they might have just been dropped off,” said Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr.

Officials said they think the group of 40 men was taken on Sunday to the shopping center, near the intersection of Magnolia Street and Garfield Avenue, as part of a planned transfer to another smuggler or another house that apparently fell through.

INS officials said the 26 men who were detained apparently were part of a group of 100 people bound for New York City who boarded a fishing vessel about a month ago before debarking in Baja California.

From there, smugglers led the group across the international border on foot and drove about 40 of them to an Orange County home, thought to be somewhere along the coast, said Jim Hayes, INS assistant director for anti-smuggling operations.

The 26 men are being held at a federal detention center in San Pedro.

Border Patrol officials have arrested an increasing number of Chinese citizens trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. So far this year, 384 Chinese have been arrested at the crossing in San Ysidro, compared to 34 in 1991, authorities said.