2 Men Tell of Torture at Hands of Smugglers : Immigration: The Chinese immigrants say they and 10 others were beaten by captors seeking to extort money from their relatives. West Covina police have launched a widespread investigation.

The discovery of two battered and bleeding men, clad only in underwear and cowering in a West Covina back yard, has sparked a widespread investigation into the months-long torture and extortion of a dozen Chinese immigrants by operators of a sophisticated Southern California smuggling ring.

The two men told authorities they were being held with 10 other immigrants in a home but had managed to escape by jumping from a second-story window. They said their captors had beaten the 12 men with lead pipes, burned them with cigarettes and poured liniment in their eyes to make them scream in pain while on the telephone to relatives.

The tactics were used to pressure relatives to cough up thousands of dollars in additional smuggling fees before releasing the immigrants, authorities said.

West Covina police, aided by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, are searching for the 10 immigrants, who they believe are still at risk of beatings and torture.

INS officials say the extortion incident could be a harbinger of future problems for the West Coast. Yearly, up to 100,000 immigrants from China enter the United States illegally--20,000 through Southern California, said Jim Hayes, an INS official in the Los Angeles district. Most of the immigrants are bound for New York City.

Past incidents of torture and extortion have been commonly reported in New York, or aboard smuggling vessels, Hayes said. The stay in Southern California for immigrants was usually a short one en route to New York City, allowing little time for mistreatment.

But with heightened awareness in New York of abuses there and faster response by officials, Hayes said INS investigators have received word of longer stays here and increased abuse.

“This case is unique in that the people were kept in Los Angeles for such a long period of time,” Hayes said. But, he added, “I would expect to see an increase in situations like the one in West Covina.”

Two immigrant drop houses recently raided by West Covina police as part of the investigation yielded food rotting on counters, rice cookers left operating and numerous chairs pushed back from tables--but no immigrants.

Police have been laboriously checking phone bills for those houses to find other drop houses. They are also translating documents in Chinese left behind in apparent haste when the immigrants and their captors fled, one step ahead of authorities.

“We’re really in shock,” West Covina Police Lt. John Schimanski said. “I’ve been in the department 25 years and I don’t remember anything like this. . . . It’s unbelievable that this was going on in our own back yard.”

Police stumbled upon the smuggling ring the morning of Sept. 20 after a woman called from a house in the 2900 block of La Puente Road to report that two men were in her back yard.

An officer responding to the call spotted a man who began running down the street and two other men, who sped off in a white Cadillac. The officer chased and captured the man, who fled on foot after discarding a beeper and a portable telephone, Schimanski said.

Shao Quin Chen, a 27-year-old Chinese, was held without bail.

Chen, who police said arrived legally in the United States a year ago but overstayed his visa, was arraigned Wednesday in Citrus Municipal Court in West Covina on two charges of kidnaping for purposes of extortion. A preliminary hearing was set for Oct. 19.

Other officers called to the scene on La Puente Road soon discovered the two immigrants in a back yard. Clad only in T-shirts and undershorts, they were bleeding from cuts on their bodies and had numerous burns, along with swollen feet, Schimanski said.

Neither of the men spoke English. Police were befuddled until a nurse at Queen of the Valley Hospital translated. The two injured men told police an incredible tale of horror, Schimanski said.

Both said they were from China and had paid $12,000 to $15,000 apiece to come to the United States. After flying to Central America with 40 other illegal immigrants, they said they entered the United States through Mexico in June in a large truck, the lieutenant said.

A dozen of them were taken to homes in West Covina and Walnut, where someone called “the Snake Head”--the Chinese term for a smuggler--suddenly began demanding an additional $15,000 before releasing them.

Guarded by a woman and three men, all wielding semiautomatic handguns, the immigrants were kept upstairs and sometimes confined to closets in large, two-story tract homes, the two men reported. They were tortured and fed only a meager portion of rice once a day, Schimanski said.

The men, ages 36 and 27, said they escaped by jumping barefoot from the second story of one of the houses. The 36-year-old broke both of his heels in the escape; the 27-year-old broke one, Schimanski said. The two immigrants, whose names have not been released, remain in INS custody at Terminal Island.

Based on their information, police on Sept. 21 raided a home in the 19600 block of Paseo de Sevilla in Walnut, and on Sept. 26 another home in the 2900 block of Topaz Lane in West Covina.

Both homes were empty but showed signs of having contained large numbers of people who fled rapidly, leaving behind food, beepers and phone bills. The Paseo de Sevilla home contained a $2,500 phone bill with calls to China, Central America and various San Gabriel Valley homes, Schimanski said. Possible links to Asian organized crime are under investigation, but so far no evidence has been found, he said.

Police initially withheld news of the smuggling ring in hopes of finding the other 10 immigrants, he said. But investigators now believe they may have been moved elsewhere, even though police continue the search for other drop houses in the area.

“If they don’t pay, they’re shipped elsewhere--New York or San Francisco--like indentured servants to pay off the smuggling bills,” Schimanski said.

Hayes said the going price over the last three years for immigrants smuggled out of mainland China has remained at between $25,000 to $30,000 via boat and $15,000 to $20,000 via plane. In addition to profit, the money is used to pay expenses: a long bus ride through mainland China, plane or boat fare to the United States and other countries, rent on drop houses, food for the smuggled immigrants, phony or bona fide immigration documents, and bribes to border officials, the INS official said.

“All that takes time, three to six to eight months in transit,” he said.

In February, 17 Chinese immigrants were found by authorities in a Rosemead house. Recently, Border Patrol agents in San Diego have intercepted boatloads of smuggled immigrants, many from China’s Fujian province. Other immigrants have been stopped at Los Angeles International Airport.

Schimanski said one of the houses searched in West Covina yielded a poignant note scrawled in Chinese on a scrap of paper, perhaps penned by one of the tortured immigrants.

“The beautiful journey” was all it read.